Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array.

Public observatory · San Pedro de Atacama, Antofagasta Region, Chile

Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array

Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is a public observatory in San Pedro de Atacama, Antofagasta Region, Chile. It is open to the public.

Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in brief

Open to the public
Yes
Bortle class
Not yet rated
Observes in
Submillimeter
Part of
Llano de Chajnantor Observatory
Operated by
ESO, NAOJ, NRAO

Official site

Can you visit Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array? Yes

Free weekend visits to the ALMA Operations Support Facility by online booking; no summit access.

A public night at an observatory usually starts at dusk with a short talk, then a line at the eyepiece of the main telescope for the Moon, a planet or a bright cluster, with volunteers' smaller telescopes set up outside. Dress for the night air even in summer: domes are not heated, so the telescope stays at outside temperature. Many nights sell out or cancel for clouds, so check the observatory's site on the day.

Telescopes at Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array: submillimeter

66 x 12m/7m dishes.

How this observatory is built, part by part and supplier by supplier: ALMA Spotlight.

Llano de Chajnantor Observatory: 9 observatories on one site

How dark the sky is at Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array

Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array has no Bortle rating in the list yet. The scale below shows what each class looks like.

1 mag 8.0 21.99+ 2 mag 7.5 21.89+ 3 mag 7.0 21.69+ 4 mag 6.5 20.49+ 5 mag 6.0 19.50+ 6 mag 5.5 18.94+ 7 mag 5.0 18.38+ 8 mag 4.5 18.00+ 9 mag 4.0
The Bortle scale. Each panel shows the class number, the faintest star the naked eye reaches at the zenith, and the darkest-edge sky brightness reading of that class in mag/arcsec².

Sky brightness and class come from the World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness (Falchi et al. 2016, CC BY-NC 4.0), with natural skyglow added, at the coordinates below. Research telescopes are often sited on mountains above the haze, so the real sky can be darker than the map suggests.

Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array among the observatories of Chile

Alto Loa National Reserve Bosque Fray Jorge National Park Gabriela Mistral Dark Sky Sanctuary Mano del Desierto Río Hurtado Rolf Chini Cerro Murphy Observatory Extremely Large Telescope Llano de Chajnantor Observatory SOAR Telescope (Southern Astrophysical Research) Giant Magellan Telescope CTAO South (Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory South) MASCARA-South BlackGEM Array MPG/ESO 2.2m Telescope Rapid Eye Mount Telescope Swiss Euler Telescope TAROT-South TRAPPIST Telescope VISTA Survey Telescope VLT Survey Telescope Next-Generation Transit Survey UCN 84 Telescope IRIS Telescope Victor M. Blanco 4m Telescope SARA South Telescope CHASE Telescope PROMPT Telescope GONG Telescope Wisconsin H-Alpha Mapper Atacama Pathfinder Experiment Atacama Submillimeter Telescope Experiment NANTEN2 Observatory University of Tokyo Atacama Observatory Huan Tran Telescope (HTT) All Sky Automated Survey HAT-South BiSON Deep Sky Chile Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope Simons Observatory ExTrA Danish 1.54m Telescope SPECULOOS-South VLT Auxiliary Telescopes Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope KMTNet-CTIO HATPI CLASS Telescopes Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory ESO 3.6m Telescope Gemini South Observatory La Silla Observatory Las Campanas Observatory New Technology Telescope Paranal Observatory Very Large Telescope Vera C. Rubin Observatory SMARTS Telescopes Du Pont Telescope Swope Telescope Warsaw Telescope Magellan Telescopes Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array San Pedro de Atacama, Antofagasta Region, Chile Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array San Pedro de Atacama, Antofagasta Region, Chile
Dark sky place Research or private observatory Observatory open to the public

Green dots are observatories open to the public, blue dots research or private sites, squares dark sky places; select one for its page. See Observatories in Chile for the full list.

The coordinates on this page point to Llano de Chajnantor site point (Wikipedia): 23.023°S, 67.755°W.

Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Open the larger map · Directions. Mountain observatory roads are often gated after dark; go only on a scheduled public night.

Dark sky places, observatories and clubs near Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array

Nearest dark sky places

PlaceWhereBortleDistance
Alto Loa National ReserveOllague, Chile1193 km (120 mi)
Mano del DesiertoAntofagasta, Chile1275 km (171 mi)

Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array record

Every value in the observatories dataset for Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array
ID449
NameAtacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array
AcroynmALMA
CitySan Pedro de Atacama
StateAntofagasta Region
CountryChile
ContinentSouth America
Webhttps://www.almaobservatory.org/en/home/
Publicy
Telescope66 x 12m/7m dishes
ComplexLlano de Chajnantor Observatory
ParentESO, NAOJ, NRAO
Type1submillimeter
Lat-23.0228
Lon-67.75500
LatLonSpotLlano de Chajnantor site point (Wikipedia)
StatusActive
StatusNoteFull operations since 2013
PublicNoteFree weekend visits to the ALMA Operations Support Facility by online booking; no summit access
Sourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llano_de_Chajnantor_Observatory

From the site's observatories dataset (observatoriesglobal_q426). Distances are computed from the coordinates.