Threatening clouds over Paranal Observatory

This is unusual to get such dark and threatening clouds above one of the driest place on Earth. But it’s been so for two days and we just hope that no drops of rain will fall down because the Observatory is not made for rain and that’s just more hassle for the staff and of course for the occasional visitors who are not getting their projects done.

Tonight it got worse, the wind is blowing over 20 meters/second (45 miles/hour) and the humidity rose above 50% due to the proximity of the clouds.

In the morning it did look promising though… I really like this metallic light and feeling we get just before sunrise (not much sun today). The horizon was so clear, we could see the snow on the Cordillera a few hundred km away as well as on the 6739m (21,300 ft) Llullaillaco Volcano which is in Argentina.

night is over, clouds are there

But the Observatory routine (and life!) does not stop. The cleaning ladies walk towards the residencia…

Usual morning walk from the “village” to the Residencia, under the unusual clouds.

At night, after a rough day of work taking care of all the instruments and facilities some French engineers play with their “toys for boys”: they fly helicopters in the gym!

Sebastien Poupar flying his helicoper

Pierre Bourget tuning his big helicopter

At the end of the night, the scenery is impressive. Here’s a long exposure shot above the Residencia at 6:00am. we can see the Southern Cross making its way through the moving clouds and the important airglow. The night isn’t completely lost, at least for me!

Entering a cloudy twilight, back to the Residencia!

You can see more photos about the past 48 hours of cloudy Paranal on this Flickr Photo Set.

Roger shoots

I hope it get translated/subtitled in other languages soon.

We are safe

http://videotheque.cnrs.fr/doc=3968
(click on “Visionner”)

Les Mayas, le calendrier et le 21-12-2012 – Vidéo Dailymotion.

Les Mayas, le calendrier et le 21-12-2012 is also accessible on DailyMotion.

As one can see (I put notes on the flickr image, click on it) this 25-second exposure taken on October 20, 2011 contains a lot of things (the Earth’s zodiacal light, the “Kiwi”, the galactic center, the VLT observatory, a big heart in light painting, etc.) and it is a tribute to my wife who came to live in Chile with me so I could pursue my dream with astronomy. I stood behind my camera setup on a small tripod and fired the timer, then I drew a heart in the air using my ESO tiny key-chain Maglite®. It took me quite a few tried to get it like that especially not having a press-button flash light. Pressed against my fingers the heart was pink/red naturally and I just accentuated the pink.

This Picture was selected as ESO Picture of the week in february 2012 as a Valentine’s day image:
www.eso.org/public/images/potw1207a/
www.facebook.com/ESOAstronomy

Zoomable Picture (reprocessed by ESO):
www.eso.org/public/images/potw1207a/zoomable/

The story was put on Space.com:
www.space.com/14562-space-valentines-day-photo-galaxy-hea…

and then
the Santiago Times:
www.santiagotimes.cl/chile/education/23447-heart-shaped-l…

on WikiPedia’s page about Valentine’s day:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine%27s_Day
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Heart_of_the_Milky_Way_-_Valen…

etc.

Then it was blogged everywhere, starting:

in Russian:
www.infuture.ru/article/5687

in Chinese:
roll.sohu.com/20120215/n334812427.shtml

on Yahoo News:
news.yahoo.com/cosmic-valentines-day-photo-wraps-milky-wa…

in Portuguese:
resenha-on.blogspot.com/2012/03/o-coracao-da-via-lactea-p…

etc. etc.

and on tumblr, rebloggued hundreds of times:
www.itsokaytobesmart.com/post/17614238791/put-a-little-sc…

moxielicious.tumblr.com/post/17634460764/put-a-little-sci…
etc. etc.