Magellan Telescopes at 2,380 m (7,810 ft).

Public observatory · Cerro Las Campanas, Atacama Region, Chile

Magellan Telescopes

Magellan Telescopes is a public observatory in Cerro Las Campanas, Atacama Region, Chile. It is open to the public.

Magellan Telescopes in brief

Open to the public
Yes
Elevation
2,380 m (7,810 ft)
Bortle class
Not yet rated
Operated by
Las Campanas Observatory

Official site

Can you visit Magellan Telescopes? Yes

Research site; public visits limited, by arrangement with LCO.

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 Magellan Telescopes

2 x 6.5m.

How dark the sky is at Magellan Telescopes

Magellan Telescopes 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.

Magellan Telescopes 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 Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array Du Pont Telescope Swope Telescope Warsaw Telescope Magellan Telescopes Cerro Las Campanas, Atacama Region, Chile Magellan Telescopes Cerro Las Campanas, Atacama 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 Las Campanas Observatory site point (Wikipedia): 29.016°S, 70.692°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 Magellan Telescopes

Nearest dark sky places

PlaceWhereBortleDistance
Gabriela Mistral Dark Sky SanctuaryVicuna, Chile2128 km (80 mi)
Río HurtadoPichasca, Chile2154 km (96 mi)
Bosque Fray Jorge National ParkOvalle, Chile2207 km (128 mi)

Other observatories open to the public within 150 km

  • Las Campanas ObservatoryCerro Las Campanas, Atacama Region, Chile, 0 km (0 mi). Limited visits by prior arrangement; check site
  • Du Pont TelescopeCerro Las Campanas, Atacama Region, Chile, 0 km (0 mi). Research site; public visits limited, by arrangement with LCO
  • Swope TelescopeCerro Las Campanas, Atacama Region, Chile, 0 km (0 mi). Research site; public visits limited, by arrangement with LCO
  • Warsaw TelescopeCerro Las Campanas, Atacama Region, Chile, 1 km (1 mi). Research site; public visits limited, by arrangement with LCO
  • La Silla ObservatoryLa Silla, Coquimbo Region, Chile, 27 km (17 mi). Free guided visits Saturdays 10 am and 2 pm Sep-Mar; Sat and Sun 10 am Apr-Aug; book ahead
  • New Technology TelescopeLa Silla, Coquimbo Region, Chile, 27 km (17 mi). Part of ESO La Silla public visits

Magellan Telescopes record

Every value in the observatories dataset for Magellan Telescopes
ID460
NameMagellan Telescopes
CityCerro Las Campanas
StateAtacama Region
CountryChile
ContinentSouth America
Webhttp://www.lco.cl/?page_id=228
Publicy
Telescope2 x 6.5m
ParentLas Campanas Observatory
Elevation2380
Lat-29.0159
Lon-70.69208
LatLonSpotLas Campanas Observatory site point (Wikipedia)
StatusActive
StatusNoteBaade and Clay 6.5m telescopes
PublicNoteResearch site; public visits limited, by arrangement with LCO
Sourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Campanas_Observatory

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