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Spectacular Moon Photo Caught Over Chile
Credit: Gordon Gillet, ESO.
The dazzling full moon sets behind the Very Large Telescope in Chile's Atacama Desert in this photo released June 7, 2010 by the European Southern Observatory. The moon appears larger than normal due to an optical illusion of perspective.
Full Story.
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Nebula IC 2944 from the Very Large Telescope
Credit: ESO
This stellar nursery shines 6,500 light-years from Earth. Image Released May 23, 2013.
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15 Years of the Very Large Telescope
Credit: ESO/P.D. Barthel/M. McCaughrean/M. Andersen/S. Gillessen et al./Y. Beletsky/R. Chini/T. Preibisch
The Very Large Telescope saw first light on May 25, 1989. Image Released May 23, 2013.
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Sunset at the Very Large Telescope Platform
Credit: ESO/Y. Beletsky
Astronomers enjoy the sunset at Paranal, on ESO's Very Large Telescope’s platform, just before beginning their nighttime observations. The moon and Venus shine bright, with the Auxiliary Telescope shown in silhouette.
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Paranal Observatory and the Volcano Llullaillaco
Credit: ESO/G.Hüdepohl
ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal Observatory in northern Chile began operation on May 25, 1998. Here, we present photos of the four Unit Telescopes and some of the amazing images they have produced. This aerial photograph of the home of ESO's Very Large Telescope fully demonstrates the quality of the observing site.
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Spiral Galaxy NGC 3521 - Constellation of Leo
Credit: ESO/O. Maliy
This picture of the nearby galaxy NGC 3521 was taken using the FORS1 instrument on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. The large spiral galaxy lies in the constellation of Leo (The Lion), and is only 35 million light-years away.
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Planet Earth Turns Slowly
Credit: ESO/Stéphane Guisard
The sky appears to rotate above ESO's Very Large Telescope in this long exposure. The star trails curve away from the celestial equator in the middle of the photo, where the stars seem to move in a straight line.
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The Center of the Milky Way
Credit: ESO/S. Gillessen et al.
The central parts of our Galaxy, the Milky Way, as observed in the near-infrared with the NACO instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope.
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ESO's Very Large Telescope with Laser Beam
A glowing laser shines forth from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, creating an artificial star 90 km above the surface of the Earth used to fine-tune the telescope's optics.
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Nebula Dominated by Cosmic Superbubble
Credit: ESO/Manu Mejias
The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope was used to obtain this view of the nebula LHA 120-N 44 surrounding the star cluster NGC 1929. Lying within the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way, this region of star formation features a colossal superbubble of material expanding outwards due to the influence of the cluster of young stars at its heart that sculpts the interstellar landscape and drives forward the nebula’s evolution.
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Swirling Star Trails Over Yepun
Credit: ESO/F. Char
This view shows one of the Unit Telescopes of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) sitting beneath bright star trails circling the south celestial pole, a point in the sky that lies in the southern constellation of Octans (The Octant). Image released Jan. 7, 2013.
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Omega Nebula's Bright Pink Heart
Credit: ESO
This image of the Omega Nebula (Messier 17), captured by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, is one of the sharpest of this object ever taken from the ground. It shows the dusty, rosy central parts of the famous star-forming region in fine detail.
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The VLT in Action
Credit: ESO/S. Brunier
The ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) during observations. In this picture, taken from the VLT platform looking north-northwest at twilight, the four 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes (UTs) are visible.
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Carina Nebula Infrared Image from ESO's Very Large Telescope
Credit: ESO/T. Preibisch
This panorama of the Carina Nebula, a region of massive star formation in the southern skies, was taken in infrared light using the HAWK-I camera on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile and released Feb. 8, 2012. Many previously hidden features, scattered across a spectacular celestial landscape of gas, dust and young stars, have emerged.
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Milky Way in 360-Degree Panorama
Credit: ESO/S. Brunier
This amazing image seems to show the Milky Way streaming down not once, but twice, at ESO's Very Large Telescope on Chile's Cerro Paranal mountain. Actually, the photo shows a 360-degree panorama of the sky, so the two streams of stars are two halves of the band of the Milky Way arcing across the sky.
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Yepun’s Laser and the Magellanic Clouds
Credit: ESO/B. Tafreshi/TWAN
This spectacular image shows Yepun, the fourth 8.2-metre Unit Telescope of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) facility, launching a powerful yellow laser beam into the sky.
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War and Peace Nebula Captured by ESO's Very Large Telescope
Credit: ESO
The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope has taken the most detailed image so far of a spectacular part of the stellar nursery called NGC 6357. The view shows many hot young stars, glowing clouds of gas and weird dust formations sculpted by ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds.
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VLT Looks into the Eyes of the Virgin
Credit: ESO
This striking image, taken with the FORS2 instrument on the Very Large Telescope, shows a beautiful yet peculiar pair of galaxies, NGC 4438 and NGC 4435, nicknamed The Eyes. The larger of these, at the top of the picture, NGC 4438, is thought to have once been a spiral galaxy that was strongly deformed by collisions in the relatively recent past. The two galaxies belong to the Virgo Cluster and are about 50 million light-years away.
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NGC 6729 - Baby Stars Spit Up High-Speed Jets in Photo
Credit: ESO
This very detailed false-colour image from ESO’s Very Large Telescope shows the dramatic effects of very young stars on the dust and gas from which they were born in the star-forming region NGC 6729.
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Orion Nebula Spied by Hawk I 1024
Credit: ESO
The central region of the Orion Nebula (M42, NGC 1976) as seen in the near-infrared by the High Acuity Wide field K-band Imager (HAWK-I) instrument at ESO's Very Large Telescope at Paranal.
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Hot Stars Found Hidden in Galaxy's Dusty Embrace
Credit: ESO
This infrared image of the nearby galaxy Messier 83 was taken by ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile.
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Rose Red Stars
Credit: ESO/Manu Mejias, images
The star cluster NGC 371 appears in this new image from ESO’s Very Large Telescope.
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Carina Nebula Imaged by the VLT Survey Telescope
Credit: ESO. Acknowledgement: VPHAS+ Consortium/Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit
The spectacular star-forming Carina Nebula has been captured in great detail by the VLT Survey Telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory. This picture was taken with the help of Sebastián Piñera, President of Chile, during his visit to the observatory on June 5, 2012 and released on the occasion of the new telescope's inauguration in Naples on Dec. 6, 2012.
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Planetary Nebula Fleming 1
Credit: ESO/H. Boffin
This ESO Very Large Telescope image shows the planetary nebula Fleming 1 in the constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur). New observations suggest that a very rare pair of white dwarf stars lies at the heart of this object, with their orbital motions explaining the nebula's remarkably symmetric jet structures. Image released Nov. 8, 2012.
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Sharpening Up Jupiter
Credit: ESO/F. Marchis, M. Wong, E. Marchetti, P. Amico, S. Tordo
Amazing image of Jupiter taken in infrared light on the night of Aug. 17, 2008 with the Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics Demonstrator (MAD) prototype instrument mounted on ESO's Very Large Telescope.
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Spectrum of a Large Exoplanet
Credit: ESO/M. Janson
This spectrum of a large exoplanet, about 130 light years away from Earth, was taken using ESO's Very Large Telescope.
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Cosmic Jewel Box Photographed in Detail
Credit: ESO/Y. Beletsky
The FORS1 instrument on the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) at ESO’s Paranal Observatory was used to take this exquisitely sharp close up view of the colourful Jewel Box cluster, NGC 4755. The telescope’s huge mirror allowed very short exposure times.
