A Stellar Image From A Steller Obervatory

Its builders claim the European Southern Observatory houses the world's most advanced optical instrument. The photo they posted today certainly makes it hard to argue with their claim. That "instrument" is an 8.2 meter diameter main mirror coupled with four movable 1.8m diameter Auxiliary Telescopes. We are told that when they work together, in groups of two or three, to form a giant 'interferometer' this "allows astronomers to see details up to 25 times finer than with the individual telescopes." This enabled the ESO to be the first Earth bound observatory/telescope to capture the first image of an extrasolar planet [eso0842]. One of the 'very kewl' things about this observatory, which is based in southern Chile, is each of the four auxiliary telescopes have names that originate from the indigenous peoples of the area: The Mapuche. The names of each of the auxiliary units in the Mapuche language have very specific meanings: (1) Antu -which means The Sun [UT1]; (2) Kueyen -which means The Moon [UT2]; (3) Melipal - which means The Southern Cross [UT3]: and finally (4) Yepun - which means Venus.

The ESO web site also tells us this region of Chile on a moonless night is so dark and low in light pollution you can see your shadow from the stars in the Milky Way. Anyone, even those with a mild or fleeting interest in astronomy, would surely love to visit this area and experience an evening with a telescope. The image in question, Super Nova 1987A, is quite an impressive event where the star's material has been ejected by the explosion at 100 million kilometers per hour. We further learn from Astronomy Now Online the image shows the star's ejecta that took 10 years to catch the previous ring exhaled by the dying star:

How impressive is that? I'm sure the cache of future images of the ESO VLT won't rival Hubble or the new James Webb Space Telescope to be launched in 2014. But if the image of Supernova 1987A above is any indication I'm sure we won't be disappointed.

One last little factoid about the ESO facilities. The wing that houses the denizens of this community of researchers was featured in the last James Bond movie Quantum of Solace. Now that's worth a martini shaken, and not stirred to know.