Southern-Hemisphere

A green laser beam from the Very Large Telescope at ESO's Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert points up into the arch of the Milky Way over the southern night sky.

Astrotourism

Atacama stargazing: the southern sky you can't see from 35° north

I observe from a balcony in Nicosia at 35° north, and there is an entire half of the sky I have never seen. Not “hard to see.” Never. The Southern Cross, the two Magellanic Clouds, Omega Centauri riding high instead of skimming the murk: from Cyprus these sit permanently below my horizon or crawl along it. The Atacama Desert in northern Chile is where I’d go to fix that, and if you observe from anywhere in Europe, it’s probably the single trip that would show you the most sky you’ve never had access to. ...

The Milky Way arching over a dark southern hemisphere landscape with the Southern Cross, pointer stars, and Magellanic Clouds visible

Astrotourism

NamibRand: what the sky looks like from a Bortle 1 desert at 25° south

NamibRand Nature Reserve covers 2,150 km² of Namib Desert roughly 400 km southwest of Windhoek. In 2012, the International Dark-Sky Association gave it Gold Tier International Dark Sky Reserve status — the second site in the world to receive the designation, and the first in Africa. The reserve records Bortle 1 sky conditions on a continuously logging Unihedron SQM-LE, with the nearest meaningful light dome more than 70 km away. If you’ve only ever observed from mid-northern latitudes and wonder what the Milky Way looks like when its core passes through your zenith, this is the place to find out. ...