400 Years of the Telescope

…And so our morning began…. with one dying Chevy pickup that had been giving us trouble all week, but we never imagined that it would completely stall about 10 times, the final three less than 2 kilometers from the airport. We left our hotel, Casa de Don Pedro, at 6am this morning on an hour and a half trek to the Calama airport. In reality, our travels took us about 2 and a half hours. We pulled in just in time for Kris to give the Avis representatives the update on the truck’s poor health.

Thus our day HAD to improve.

The theory was a valid one as we boarded our flight on time, arrived in Antofagasta on time to pick up our rental car. Initially we were booked for a full-size van, but we decided (after discovering that the spare tire was lacking sufficient air) to take a truck instead…another Red Truck. It must be our poor luck with Chilean Red Trucks because as we pulled out of the parking lot with our rental, the Dollar Rental Car representative warned us that the alarm system was a bit screwy. We thought little of the comment until later in the day when, without proper warning, and every time someone opened a door, the alarm would sound. We tried tirelessly to locate the off-button for the system, but to no avail. To this hour, our loco red truck sounds alarms every time someone opens a door, no matter what buttons we press.

We arrived at the Paranal Observatory summit around 2pm where we were greeted by our guide for the next two days. We were told that we would have a chance to unpack our things and have a bite to eat before we got to shoot any footage. This was a pleasant treat for the crew who had eaten airport breakfast consisting of Nescafe coffee and ham, egg and cheese sandwiches and a bag of Cheetos between them for the whole day thus far. As the crew walked into the Paranal hotel atrium, they were blown away by the change in environment from the dry Atacama Desert outside. The atrium was filled with exotic plants, adding to a tropical humidity that the crew was thankful for after being dried out by desert living over the last week.

The crew headed up the mountain after a filling cafeteria-style lunch. The summit houses the four VLT telescopes, each with an 8-meter diameter, which, when their data is combined, creates the largest telescope on earth. The crew was treated to an outdoor interview scheduled for them with the Deputy Director of Paranal, Ricardo.

The crew was nearly blown away atop the summit during the interview and decided to do their next interview with one of the VLT’s astronomers inside the first of the four domes. They set up the cameras side-by–side atop one of the elevated platforms in the dome, the telescope directly behind the interviewee, Christophe.

Mid-interview, the crew was alerted to the fact that sunset was about to occur and that the dome would be opening. The crew quickly finished the interview and got set-up for the sunset, Anita Berkow, Kris Koenig and Krista Shelby found a nice spot outside the dome (in the wind), while Scott Stender stayed inside and shot the rotating dome and the opening of the dome’s slit. A few minutes after sunset, the crew all re-convened outside where Scott got some last-minute shots of the domes illuminated by the moon. He even slowed down the shutter speed to increase the illumination of the stars in the background of the shot – how ingenious! While Scott got these last-minute shots and the girls repacked the equipment, Kris went to another part of the summit to set up his Canon still camera to capture this unique time-lapse photography opportunity – full moon, four domes, clear skies – it was a beautiful night. We look forward to seeing what the camera yielded. In the meantime, please check out last Tuesday’s blog where we reposted a working copy of our first time-lapse capture of this trip. Enjoy!