Did you know that the VLT is only 12 km away from the Pacific Ocean? Humidity and clouds are usually stopped by the steep mountain range below the telescopes, which enjoy clear skies at 2635 m.

[A few photos I took from a plane a couple of weeks ago. I won't come any closer this time 😭 ]

The last observatories along my roadtrip in Chile. From above 5000 m, around the Cerro Toco in the Atacama desert. 🔭

22 km from Paranal, the Cerro Armazones Observatory (3060m) is getting ready to welcome our biggest eye on the sky! The European Extremely Large Telescope 🔭 (with a primary mirror of 39 m diameter) will start operations in 2028! The construction site is already very... sorry... extremely impressive!

ESO observatory at Cerro Paranal (Atacama desert, Chile), from a distance 🔭

🔭 TAO is the highest observatory in the world! Its extreme altitude even allows for infrared observations.
The 26m-tall dome hosts a 6.5m telescope.
I barely saw it from the main road tonight. Just a tiny white dot...
(ALMA is on the plateau, just below. Not visible from here 😥)

Congratulations to Dr Segovia Otero!!! 🎉

and I'm ready to celebrate!

Álvaro Segovia Otero is defending his PhD thesis "Star formation in cosmological simulations of Milky Way-like galaxies". I cannot be there, but I support him remotely (and my remote location is not too bad compared to cold Sweden!)

How am I supposed to do proper astronomy with so much light in the sky? 🤪

[a few days ago, in the middle of the Icelandic highlands]

Happy new year to all!
Best wishes from Strasbourg, France

Inaugural lecture of Sandrine Courtin, the new Marguerite Perey chair at the @unistra.bsky.social Institute for Advanced Study (USIAS), on nucleosynthesis in massive stars!

(and presentation of the 2023 fellows, inc. yours truly 😉)

#usias #astronomy #strasbourg #france2030

Still so much to explore, and so little time
If you work in the white parts of these maps, I'm available for invited seminars ...

(If you work in the colored parts too)

tenpages.github.io/us-level/us....

#OTD exactly 8 years ago, I saw my very first #northernlights from a plane over Greenland. Many cold nights later, I think my photo techniques have slightly improved 😜