Credit: SPECULOOS Team/E. Jehin/ESO

This first light image from the Callisto telescope at the SPECULOOS Southern Observatory (SSO) shows the famous Horsehead Nebula . First light for a newly commissioned telescope is a tremendously exciting time, and usually well-known astronomical objects such as this are captured to celebrate a new telescope commencing operations. The SSO is installed at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in the vast Atacama Desert, Chile, and consists of four 1-metre planet-hunting telescopes. The project’s telescopes are named after Jupiter’s Galilean moons, and are neighbours of ESO's Very Large Telescope and VISTA . SPECULOOS will focus on detecting Earth-sized planets orbiting nearby ultra-cool stars and brown dwarfs.

Provider: European Southern Observatory

Image Source: https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1839i/

Curator: European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, None, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License