![](http://www.alamy.com/thumbs/6/0F2BE314-F6F2-4C3A-B19D-738E40CE7752/2RE6XG4.jpg)
telescope, La Silla Observatory, Chile
European southern observatory's (ESO) telescope scanning the night sky at the La Silla Observatory, Chile. Through the dome’s opening we can see the pink-hued Carina Nebula. Further down at centre-left of the slit there is the Coalsack Nebula, a dark cloud of dust. Although the telescope was decommissioned in 2002, it played a significant role in astronomical discoveries. Its most popular instrument, the Boller and Chivens spectrograph (B&C), was used to study stars, galaxies and comets for almost 30 years. The ECHelle + ELECtronic camera spectrograph (ECHELEC) helped astronomers understand the intense winds of Wolf-Rayet stars and the Fiber-fed Extended Range Optical Spectrograph (FEROS) discovered exciting exoplanets.
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Photo credit: © Zdenek Bardon/EUROPEAN SOUTHERN OBSERVATORY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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