Day 22 - James Bond And Other Stars

Last weekend, we went to Paranal Observatory. Paranal is an observatory on top of a mountain in the Atacama desert and is owned by ESO. We went there for one night then we headed home. We got up really early in the morning to catch a flight to the mining town of Antofagasta. Antofagasta is a city in a desert. We stopped there because it is the closest airport to Paranal. From there we took a two hour long bus ride to Paranal.

Once we got to Paranal, we got given keys to our rooms and had lunch. In the dining room, they have a bunch of dishes to choose from for your meal as well as lots of side dishes. They have a drinks machine with lots of different drinks like: fizzy drinks, juice, coffee and hot chocolate. They also have an ice cream machine.

Once it was close to sunset, we went higher up on the mountain, up to the telescopes. We got a tour of the top of the mountain with the four big 8 metre telescopes (UT1, UT2, UT3, UT4) that had Mapuche names Antu (Sun), Kueyen (Moon), Melipal (Southern Cross) and Yepun (Venus). Frederic showed us his telescope, UT4 or Yepun. We saw the telescope moving, the dome opening and we saw the huge instruments on the telescope. Then we went to the control room where they operated the telescopes from. When everyone else was talking to the observers, I took a nap.

The next day we flew back to Santiago and we got back at one in the morning, and went straight to sleep. The next night, we watched James Bond Quantum of Solace, the James Bond movie that they filmed at Paranal Observatory.