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Ofrecemos un tour astronomico general en cada noche nitida, incluyendo un pequeño período alrededor de la luna llena. ¡Este tour permite que la gente, sin tener un conocimiento previo, pueda entender cómo mirar el cielo, admemas de poder observar a travez de poderosos telescopios, descubriendo un mundo nuevo, nuestro universo! Y tal vez de uno de los mejores lugares sobre Tierra para ver el cielo, el desierto de Atacama.

Nuestra Agencia esta ubicada en Caracoles street 166 (Caracoles, calle principal de San Pedro de Atacama). El horario de atención es de 11h30 a 15h30 durante la mañana, y de las 18h00 a 21h00 durante la tarde. Excepto por los dias domingo en los cuales abrimos desde las 16h00 hasta la salida de nuestro primer tour.

Nuestros tours son tanto en ingles, como en español y frances. Si bien por lo general hay un tour en español, no podemos garantizar que habra un tour en español cada noche.

Durante la primera parte de este tour, enseñamos el cielo que podemos ver a simple vista. asi entonces podemos entender que estamos viendo, que es una constelacion, como aprender de ellas, como entender un mapa del cielo y reconocer las principales estrellas. Para esto nosotros nos apoyamos con un puntero laser de color verde, el cual nos ayuda a indicar con precision a que estrella estamos haciendo referencia en esta etapa del tour.

Cuando la luna es visible, ofrecemos la posibilidad de tomar fotografias a traves de los telescopios, tanto camarames digitales como reflex(nosotros contamos con adaptadores para Nikon, Canon, Minolta y Pentax).

Si bien puedes encontrar una enorme cantidad de fotografias en internet, esto no es nada comparado con la experiencia de ver directamente a traves de un telescopio. La mayoria de la gente ha visto imagenes de saturno, pero la primera vez que logras ver saturno con tus propios ojos es un momento que no olvidaras.

We have the largest park of telescopes of any public observatory in south America (between 20 and 60cm 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 60cm 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 2009. 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). To provide the best possible views, we only use Televue Nagler, Panoptic or Ethos eyepieces. If it does not tell you much, we have spent more money on good quality eyepieces than some other observatories on telescopes.

Our tours are ending around a warm drink to talk a little bit before returning to San Pedro. The tours last two hours and a half. The schedule vary during the year (later during the summer, i.e. january and february).

To plan your visit, don't forget to visit our travel tip pages, or contact us directly.

The price is 15000 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 24 per tour.

We accept little children as long as they are not a problem for the rest of the group (noise, cries). 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. We also often arrange longer tours for groups of amateur astronomers. The easiest way is to contact us and see what is possible.