BiSON at 2,380 m (7,810 ft).

Research observatory · Cerro Las Campanas, Atacama Region, Chile

BiSON

BiSON is a research observatory in Cerro Las Campanas, Atacama Region, Chile.

BiSON in brief

Open to the public
Check before you go
Elevation
2,380 m (7,810 ft)
Bortle class
Not yet rated
Observes in
Solar
Operated by
Las Campanas Observatory

Official site

Can you visit BiSON? Check before you go

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

For telescope views near BiSON, see the observatories open to the public and astronomy clubs nearby; clubs hold free public star parties.

Telescopes at BiSON: solar

solar.

Birmingham Solar Oscillations Network

How dark the sky is at BiSON

BiSON 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.

BiSON 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 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 BiSON Cerro Las Campanas, Atacama Region, Chile BiSON 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 BiSON

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

  • Swope TelescopeCerro Las Campanas, Atacama Region, Chile, 0 km (0 mi). Research site; public visits limited, by arrangement with LCO
  • Du Pont TelescopeCerro Las Campanas, Atacama Region, Chile, 0 km (0 mi). Research site; public visits limited, by arrangement with LCO
  • Magellan TelescopesCerro Las Campanas, Atacama Region, Chile, 0 km (0 mi). Research site; public visits limited, by arrangement with LCO
  • Las Campanas ObservatoryCerro Las Campanas, Atacama Region, Chile, 0 km (0 mi). Limited visits by prior arrangement; check site
  • 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

BiSON record

Every value in the observatories dataset for BiSON
ID463
NameBiSON
CityCerro Las Campanas
StateAtacama Region
CountryChile
ContinentSouth America
Webhttp://bison.ph.bham.ac.uk/
Telescopesolar
ParentLas Campanas Observatory
Type1solar
Elevation2380
NotesBirmingham Solar Oscillations Network
Lat-29.0159
Lon-70.69208
LatLonSpotLas Campanas Observatory site point (Wikipedia)
StatusActive
StatusNoteBiSON station at Las Campanas
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.