PeteUplink's Universe

A Shadow at Sunrise

In this photograph, taken by ESO Photo Ambassador Gianluca Lombardi, the Sun is rising and bathing the Chilean Atacama Desert in a familiar soft reddish glow. But this image, from 13 July 2011, has also captured something out of the ordinary: a dark shadow lurking on the horizon.

Gianluca took this photograph from Cerro Armazones, looking west. Armazones is the future home of the world’s biggest eye on the sky: the upcoming European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). The Sun rose behind Gianluca in just the right place to cast a daunting shadow of the 3060-metre-high mountain onto the Earth’s atmosphere in the distance. The shadow can be seen reaching over the vast desert landscape, and up across the horizon on the left side of the image.

The bright summit visible on the right of the image is Cerro Paranal, at an altitude of 2600 metres. It is only 20 kilometres from Cerro Armazones, and is the home of ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Both sites have exceptional astronomical observing conditions. To its right is the adjacent peak where the VISTA survey telescope is located and to its left, on the horizon, are the Paranal Observatory’s basecamp and Residencia.

The white road winding across the bottom-left corner of the photograph is the route to the summit of Cerro Armazones.