Celebrating the night

In this unusual image, two of the four small Auxiliary Telescopes stand beside their larger counterparts, the four Unit Telescopes of the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. In a world that has been folded in half, the line of the Milky Way splits the sky, under which the faint blotches of our neighbouring dwarf galaxies — the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds — are just visible. The photographer celebrates the sky from atop a platform.

Links to alternative projections of this image:

• Fisheye projection of this image
• Extended to 360 x 180 degrees (with black) version of this image