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For those wondering why do they have to go to Chile?, I presume it's for the same reason as given here for the ELT (extremely large telescope, to be completed i

For those wondering why do they have to go to Chile?, I presume it's for the same reason as given here for the ELT (extremely large telescope, to be completed in 2024): The location was chosen because of its high percentage of cloudless nights and low light pollution [1] and (notably but with a lower weight of importance) the temperature is cold enough that there will not be differences in temperature between the interior and exterior of the telescope which could cause the rays of light to defract (ever so) slightly [2]. [1] https://newatlas.com/extremely-large-telescope-construction-begins/49747/ https://newatlas.com/extremely-large-telescope-construction-... [2] https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/a/21413 https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/a/21413

mjsweet 9y ago
My Mrs is an astrophysicist and has been to Chile about 10 or so times over the last 8 years. She says the Atacama desert is ideal because of Chiles political stability as well as stability of the atmosphere. A high and dry western coastline is good for great “seeing” conditions because highly stable sea air is less prone to fluctuations in temperature which is the bane of any astronomer (this is what creates twinkling of stars). As it happens she was working on the data reduction pipeline for an instrument with adaptive optics (AO) on the Gemini South telescope. AO helps reduce atmospheric disturbances even further so they are now getting better results than Hubble from a ground based telescope.
- gattr 9y ago
  The same goes for South California mountains, especially if you're into solar imaging (the Big Bear Solar Observatory is there for a reason).
deleted 9y ago
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