Around the South Pole in Atacama

A time-exposure image captured star trails around the south celestial pole over the Atacama Desert in Chile. The fisheye image is made from Cerro Armazones mountain, the site chosen for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT), an optical/infrared telescope with 39.3 m aperture. This will be the world’s largest when it receives the first light in early 2020s.