We offer a general star tours each clear night, apart from a possible small period around the full moon. We can also offer specialized star tours and other offers for travel agencies or can rent some equipment for the amateur astronomer.
Our agency is located on Caracoles street 166 (Caracoles is San Pedro's main street). It is opened from 11h30 to 15h30, then from 18h00 to 21h00. Except on sundays when we open 16h00 to the time of the first tour.
We offer sky discovery programs which contain both pedagogical explanations about the sky and impressive observations of various celestial objects. Each tour vary of course of the visible sky that night, the presence of the moon and planets, the season of the year. Each tour start with a short explanation of the basic geographic facts (why the sky in the south is different from the sky in the north, rotation of the Earth, rotation of the sky with the seasons), the main constellations, and their historical/poetic significations. We follow with observations through high quality large telescopes which will show you a few of the breathtaking objects visible in the southern Milky Way. While you can find a lot of astronomical photographs on the web, there is nothing like the experience of visual observing. Everybody has seen images of Saturn, but the first time you really see the planet with your own eyes becomes a moment to remember.
We use a green laser pointer to show you the naked eye sky in order to show unambiguously the various constellations.
When the moon is visible, it is possible to take images of it through the telescopes, either with digital cameras, or with reflex (we have adapters for Nikon, Canon, Minolta and Pentax cameras).
We use large portable telescopes (between 25 and 45cm diameter), correctly aligned to always provide the best possible view, in order to let you discover some of the incredible views the sky has to offer. These telescopes are correctly maintained, and we use only high quality eyepieces to provide clear, sharp wide angle views. The 45cm telescope is for now the largest touristic telescope in Chile, but this record will not hold, since we are currently building two larger telescopes, which should enter operation near the end of 2007. Still, large diameters give much better views of the sky. What is hard to see in a 30cm telescope becomes quite visible, some stars show very vivid colors, and some nebulae start to be visible in color (normally, at night, we see in black and white).
Our tours are ending around a warm drink to talk a little bit before returning to San Pedro. The tours are two hours and a half long tour. The schedule vary during the year (later during the summer, i.e. january and february).
To plan your visit, you can check our pages concerning the visible sky, don't forget to visit our travel tip pages, or contact us directly.
The price is 12000 pesos per person, and includes the transport from and to San Pedro, the tour and a warm drink. We are in the desert and the nights are cold. It is very important to be warmly dressed in order to enjoy the tour without getting cold. We reimburse the tour in those rare fully covered nights. In order to offer a quality tour, the number of guests is limited to 16 per tour.
Families with small children can ask us for a minitour, at the beginning of the night.
The tour is given in english or in french or in spanish, so english speaking tours are not every night, please see with us in order to see when is the next english speaking tour. We are frequently completely booked up, so it is important to make your reservation as soon as possible.
We have quite often tours reserved by travel agencies. Every arrangement is possible.We have organized tours at sunset, with the organizers arranging for a barbecue for the guests followed by a star observation. Private tours are also available for a smaller number of persons. The easiest way is to contact us and see what is possible.
For the groups who are more interested in astronomy, we can provide specialized tours. Lasting the whole night if needed.
We can rent equipment to amateur astronomers. The telescope stay in our facilities, you use them either on the side of our house, or after our regular tours. Right now we can rent :
- A Takahashi EM200 mount, equipped or not with a Takahashi FS102 refractor with focal reducer, with or without an Audine 3200 CCD camera with filter wheel, with or without a Vixen fluorite 70mm lens, with a ST4 guiding camera.
- A 30cm F/5 newtonian goto telescope with an Audine 1602 CCD camera. This telescope is ASCOM compatible (can run under the Sky, etc...), but is normally run under PRISM.
- Dobsonian telescopes, 33cm or 45cm, with Nagler eyepieces.
Please contact us for the pricing, depending on what configuration you need, and the number of nights.