ESOshop: Mounted image 052: Early Morning on Paranal

This panorama was taken in the early morning with the Moon still high in the sky, and shows the observing platform of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) on Cerro Paranal in Chile. The VLT’s four giant 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes are all targeting different celestial objects. A laser is fired from Unit Telescope 4, Yepun, creating an artificial guide star to help the adaptive optics system capture very sharp images.

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