It would have been a shame to have come to Chile without a visit to an astonomical observatory: it’s one of very few countries in the world suitable for modern-day, ground-based observatories (i.e. it has the right altitude and low levels of light pollution).
It’s the main reason we chose to head down the coast from Caldera to La Serena, as we could use that town as a base to visit the Mamalluca Observatory. This observatory aims at providing a great introduction to amateurs interested in astronomy: a great fit for our family.
We arrived in La Serena during the afternoon and with a bit of fancy footwork managed to get on an early evening tour to the observatory. It took about an hour for our minibus to drive over to Vicuna, pick up the tickets and take us to the observatory. We chose the English-language tour which meant we were in a smaller group, although it did mean we didn’t see an introductory video in Spanish. Which was fine: our guide – Hernan – was first-class…