Posted by Alan Holmes

I recently traveled to Chile to present a paper at the Congreso Austral de Astrofotografia 201, held November 18^th and 19^th in Santiago, and to meet the large amateur astronomy group there. Here I will describe the trip for those who might be interested in attending next year, or visiting Chile some time in the future.

I was invited to speak at the conference by Daniel Verschatse, a member of our hall of fame and a well known amateur worldwide who lives in Santiago.  I traveled with my oldest son, Michael, who speaks excellent Spanish and served as my translator as I speak none.  Our flight from Dallas to Santiago was about 10 hours, arriving in the morning.  We immediately dropped our bags at the hotel, and went downtown to be tourists.  Santiago is very modern and clean, and has a metro system comparable to London’s but cleaner and more spacious.  A picture below shows the view from the Santa Lucia hill.  The building under construction in the back left side of the image will be the tallest building in South America when completed.  The current tallest building is on the right.  That white cloud in the background is snow on the Andes.

After a great dinner (Santiago has good restaurants, particularly Argentine beef places) and a night’s sleep, Eduardo and Doris, members of the organizing club, took us for a 4 wheel drive trip up to the snow line in the Maipo Valley.

The drive was spectacular, as seen in the picture below.  What was even more amazing is that the rocks at this 8000 foot level are full of seashell fossils!

The next day Stephane Guisard, an STL-11K user (http://astrosurf.com/sguisard/) and optical engineer for the European Southern Observatory (ESO), took us on a trip to Valparaiso and Vina Del Mar.  Valparaiso is Chile’s main port, and Vina Del Mar a very popular beach area.  The water there is like Southern California, too cold for comfortable swimming even in summer, but the coastline is spectacular, and the seafood restaurants excellent.

Stephane hosted us for dinner that night, which had Pisco Sours for a starter followed by

white wine and sushi.  He also introduced us to Silvia Mullner, a passionate amateur astronomer with an enthusiasm that was truly breathtaking.

 

 

 

Her web site is http://www.observatoryserena.com.  Both Stephane and Silvia have been experimenting with time lapse images of the night sky rotating behind interesting landscapes with dramatic results.

The conference began the next day at the ESO headquarters in a quiet, leafy suburb of Santiago. I

demonstrated some equipment in the lobby, and looked over the model on display of the upcoming Extremely Large Telescope, with a mirror 139 feet in diameter (that is not a misprint)!

That day ended with a banquet dinner at a nice restaurant.  The next day the conference was at the Santiago Planetarium near the university, and I spoke first.

The organizers had arranged a simultaneous translation, so the attendees were listening on headsets to the translation while I spoke – I felt like I was at the UN.

I spoke about new products at SBIG, specifically our new STF-8300, and its Off-Axis Guider, differential guiding, and the ST-I and STX-6303 cameras. After that I presented a few slides on my favorite subject, stray light in telescopes.  The stray light manifests itself as flat fields that don’t work, and is usually due to near-infrared light glinting off black anodized, but unpainted, drawtubes.  I will do a report on this on our web site at a later date.

My son, Michael, who has little interest in astronomy himself, was wandering outside the planetarium during the conference when the wind came up and suddenly found his throat burning and eyes watering.  It turns out there had been a major confrontation between the police and a student demonstration at that area the day before and the tear gas dust was ‘blowing in the wind”! After the talks in the main room, we adjourned to a neighboring room for a question and answer session.  Daniel Verschatse is on the left, and Alain Maury, who runs the Atacama Lodge for astronomy tourists, http://www.spaceobs.com/en/lodge.php, is on the right.

There was a lot of interest in SBIG’s future plans, which is always a difficult subject for me since I know what I say may end up on a chat room somewhere!  We are always working on new designs!

The highlight of the second day for me was our star party at the Observatorio Astronomico Andino (OAA), a privately owned observatory outside Santiago.  The observatory’s web site is http://www.oaa.cl/.   It was truly a spectacular observatory for large groups, with nothing comparable anywhere in the world.  Roland and Marge Christian of Astrophysics are with me at the entrance below.

Inside is a large sitting area, a patio with 5 or 6 scopes set up, a cafeteria, a roll off roof area with 3 large LX200 scopes, many fireplaces surrounded by padded benches, and office space.  The owner was there supervising the black and white clad servers distributing Pisco Sours, wine, and various finger food samplings.  I was in Heaven – friendly people, astronomy, food and unlimited wine!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of the evening we had a drawing for an ST-I door prize, which was won by Maria from the Valparaiso Astronomical Association.  The drawing produced a lot of excitement and interest from the group.  It may be the only ST-I in the Southern hemisphere!

At the end of the evening I congratulated Alejandro Nunez, the IT consultant, and Diego Cartes, the treasurer, for a well organized, highly enjoyable conference. The other members of the organizing board were Guillermo Yanez, and Daniel Verschatse.

I left feeling like I had 70 new friends!  I am sure the conference will be held in November next year, and if anyone is interested in attending, or visiting a dark sky site, give me a call and I will be glad to discuss the logistics of such travel with them.

The next day Michael and I were off to the emptiness of San Pedro de Atacama, but that is another story.