Jump to content

File:Starry Spin-up.jpg

Page contents not supported in other languages.
This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Original file (4,368 × 2,912 pixels, file size: 5.35 MB, MIME type: image/jpeg)

Summary

Description
English: This image, taken by ESO Photo Ambassador Alexandre Santerne, is more than a little disorientating at first glance! Resembling an optical illusion or an abstract painting, the starry circles arc around the south celestial pole, seen overhead at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile.

Each circular streak represents an individual star, imaged over a long period of time to capture the motion of the stars across the sky caused by the Earth’s rotation. La Silla is based in the outskirts of Chile’s Atacama Desert at some 2400 metres above sea level, and offers perfect observing conditions for long-exposure shots like this; the site experiences over 300 clear nights a year!

The site is host to many of ESO’s telescopes and to national projects run by the ESO Member States. Some of these telescopes can be seen towards the bottom of the image. The ESO 3.6-metre telescope stands tall on the left peak, now home to the world's foremost extrasolar planet hunter: the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS).

Other telescopes at La Silla include the New Technology Telescope, which partly masks the ESO 3.6-metre telescope, Swiss 1.2-metre Leonhard Euler Telescope, ESO 1-metre Schmidt, the silver-domed MPG/ESO 2.2-metre, Danish 1.54-metre, and ESO 1.52-metre telescopes, which are visible here.

Taking all these facilities together, La Silla is one of the most scientifically productive ground-based facilities in the world after ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) observatory. With almost 300 refereed publications attributable to the work of the observatory per year, La Silla remains at the forefront of astronomy (ann15014).
Date
Source ESO/A.Santerne
Author http://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1534a/

Licensing

This media was created by the European Southern Observatory (ESO).
Their website states: "Unless specifically noted, the images, videos, and music distributed on the public ESO website, along with the texts of press releases, announcements, pictures of the week, blog posts and captions, are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, and may on a non-exclusive basis be reproduced without fee provided the credit is clear and visible."
To the uploader: You must provide a link (URL) to the original file and the authorship information if available.
w:en:Creative Commons
attribution
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
You are free:
  • to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
  • to remix – to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
  • attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

Captions

Add a one-line explanation of what this file represents

Items portrayed in this file

depicts

24 August 2015

File history

Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.

Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current15:12, 14 February 2024Thumbnail for version as of 15:12, 14 February 20244,368 × 2,912 (5.35 MB)C messierfull size
09:22, 24 August 2015Thumbnail for version as of 09:22, 24 August 20151,280 × 853 (427 KB)JmencisomUser created page with UploadWizard

The following 3 pages use this file:

Global file usage

The following other wikis use this file:

Metadata