Under Southern Skies

Northern Chile’s dry air and clear skies host some of the most powerful telescopes on Earth. Students visit the observatories, spend their nights at the eyepiece, and learn how Andean peoples read the same sky long before the telescope.

What students will learn

• Explain why northern Chile became a world centre for astronomy
• Understand how optical and radio telescopes see the universe differently
• Find their way around the southern sky, including the Andean dark constellations
• Practise basic astrophotography

Day by day

1. Day 1, La Serena: Arrival. Arrive in La Serena and a first briefing on what makes these skies different: altitude, dry air and laws that protect the dark.
2. Day 2, Coquimbo Region: A professional observatory. A day visit to one of the international observatories in the region, Cerro Tololo or the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, depending on their visit calendars.
3. Day 3–4, Elqui Valley: Telescopes and Gabriela Mistral. Vicuña and the museum of Gabriela Mistral, the poet who won Latin America’s first Nobel Prize. Two nights at the eyepiece at community observatories, and a workshop on Andean astronomy and the dark constellations of the Milky Way.
4. Day 5, San Pedro de Atacama: North to the desert. Fly to Calama and transfer to San Pedro de Atacama. A first night-sky session from the desert.
5. Day 6, ALMA: The radio observatory. A visit to the base camp of ALMA, the radio observatory whose 66 antennas work at 5,000 m on the Chajnantor plateau. Public visits run on weekends.
6. Day 7, San Pedro de Atacama: Geology and astrophotography. The Valley of the Moon at sunset and a last night of astrophotography.
7. Day 8, Calama: Departure. Transfer to Calama airport.