August – A kaleidoscope of colour above the VLT

Splashes of colour paint the night sky above ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile, illuminating the barren desert landscape below. Billions of bright stars, glowing nebulae, and dark filaments of dust create the giant arch of the Milky Way, which frames the Very Large Telescope (VLT) sitting on the peak of Cerro Paranal. This image was taken from the site of one of ESO’s newest telescopes, the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA).