400 Years of the Telescope

Kris Koenig, our producer, was the first member of the production team awake and moving this morning. He awoke before 2am to replace the camera batteries in his Canon still photography camera atop the Las Campanas summit. His camera was capturing images of the night sky in a time-lapse sequence, taking pictures every 15 seconds to be later compiled into a single video file for our records. The night skies over Las Campanas were unusually cloudy during our night there, which allowed us to get some spectacular footage for our segment of the telescope documentary explaining atmosphere disturbances that affect telescope observing.

The rest of the team woke up between 7 and 8am, each making their way slowly towards the Las Campanas Lodge for their morning breakfast intake that included the amazing culinary artworks of the chefs at the site. Most everyone helped himself or herself to a Las Campanas omelet that had meats, cheeses, avocado and onion rolled up into a covering of egg. This with a nice warm cup of freshly brewed coffee was all that them team needed to get their engines running for the day.

Before departing from the summit, on their way back to La Serena for their evening flight, them team said their shot good-byes to the engineering and observer support staff of the summit and made sure they got some more b-roll of the signs leading up to the summit’s 8,000 feet peak. They also made sure to get some shots of the close ESO summit, La Silla that they were not able to visit due to time constraints on this trip to Chile.

The team made their way along the coastline from Las Campanas to La Serena, stopping along the way to check out some of the coastline land properties for sale. The crew marveled at the amazing views of the coastline and the Pacific Ocean from the Cliffside property currently available to purchase. They spent the rest of the afternoon visiting the CTIO and Las Campanas headquarters in La Serena and visiting the local marketplaces getting last-minute gifts for family and friends back home.

Now they sit in the La Serena Airport, waiting for their 8pm flight to Antofogasta where they spend one evening enjoying the northern Chile culture before their short flight to Calama the next morning.