Stewards Sky Watch Group went to the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge to listen to a talk by Dr Andrew Fox called ‘European Southern Observatory (ESO) – Europe’s Big Eyes on the Sky’.  The ESO is an intergovernmental research organisation for astronomy, composed and supported by fifteen countries including the UK. Established in 1962 with an objective to provide state-of-the-art facilities and access to the southern sky to European astronomers, it is famous for building and operating some of the largest and most technical telescopes in the world. All its observation facilities are located in Chile, whilst the headquarters are located in Germany.

Dr Fox talked about all the different ESO sites in Chile and the type of telescope located there. For example, the very impressive Very Large Telescope (VLT) , consisting of four 8 metre telescopes (the diameter of the mirror inside the telescopes) and four 1.8 metre Auxiliary telescopes are located at the Paranal Observatory. The VLT has allowed astronomers to obtain the first picture of an extra solar planet orbiting a star 173 light-years away.

The ESO are planning to build an even bigger telescope – the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) in Chile very soon. It will be operational in 2018. The E-ELT will have a mirror inside which is 42 metres in diameter; this telescope will dwarf the VLT. The E-ELT will enable astronomers to view the night sky with even finer detail.