ESOcast SD

May 25 2013 is an important anniversary for the Very Large Telescope – it is exactly fifteen years since the first light on the first of its four Unit Telescopes. Since then the four original giant telescopes have been joined by the four small Auxiliary Telescopes that form part of the VLT Interferometer (VLTI). The VLT is one of the most powerful and productive ground-based astronomical facilities in existence. In 2012 more than 600 refereed scientific papers based on data from the VLT and VLTI were published. This ESOcast shows spectacular images from the VLT for every year of its operation.

ESO Movie 30a: Europe to the Stars (short 15-min version)

For our newest ESOcast, we pose this puzzle: how do you move a 100-tonne giant ALMA antenna 30 kilometres up onto the oxygen-starved Chajnantor Plateau, 5000 metres above sea level and finish the job with millimetre precision?

This 16-minute video presents the history of ALMA from the origins of the project several decades ago to the recent first science results. Illustrated by dramatic helicopter footage, the movie takes you on a journey to the 5000-metre-high Chajnantor Plateau, where ALMA stands, in the unique environment of the Atacama Desert of Chile. The movie was released by ESO, with its international partners to mark the occasion of the inauguration of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) on 13 March 2013.

The ALMA inauguration ESOcast. Share the excitement of the inauguration ceremony and contemplate the breathtaking images from ALMA itself and views of its unique environment in the Atacama Desert. This event marks the completion of all the major systems of the giant telescope and the formal transition from a construction project to a fully fledged observatory. ALMA is a partnership between Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile.

This is the third installment of Chile Chill, a type of ESOcast designed to offer a calm experience of the Chilean night sky and ESO’s observing sites, undisturbed by facts or narration. In this episode we are treated to stunning views of the Atacama Desert, including the conical volcano Licancabur and slow moonrises over the Andes.

A video podcast by Gianluca Lombardi celebrating the Geminid meteor shower.

One of the most powerful supercomputers in the world has now been fully installed and tested at its remote, high altitude site in the Andes of northern Chile. This marks one of the major remaining milestones toward completion of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the most elaborate ground-based telescope in history. The special-purpose ALMA correlator has over 134 million processors and performs up to 17 quadrillion operations per second, a speed comparable to the fastest general-purpose supercomputer in operation today.

ESO Movie 30a: Europe to the Stars (8-min teaser version)

This episode of the ESOcast introduces a new type of ESOcasts called "Chile Chill". These ESOcasts offer a calm experience of the Chilean night sky and ESO's observatory sites, undisturbed by facts or narration. In this episode we follow a typical night of observing for ESO's telescopes.

This exciting episode of the ESOcast gives viewers an exclusive backstage pass to see what went on behind the scenes while filming the ESO live webcast “A Day in the Life of ESO”.

ESOcast 48 is the eighth special episode of this series.

ESOcast 47 is the seventh special episode of this series.

ESOcast 46 is the sixth special episode of this series. It describes how state-of-the-art cameras and spectrographs help ESO’s powerful telescopes collect and analyse the faint light from the distant Universe. Without these instruments, ESO’s eyes on the sky would be blind.

Journey into the Distant Universe (Europe to the Stars clip)