CHILE La Silla -- c.2000 -- Evening view of La Silla at the moment of 'telescope start-up'.

CHILE La Silla -- c.2000 -- Evening view of La Silla at the moment of 'telescope start-up'. The dome of the Swiss 1.2-m Leonhard Euler Telescope and the adjacent building are seen in the foreground, immediately to the right of the ramp leading to the ESO 3.6-m New Technology Telescope (NTT) in its octogonal enclosure. These telescopes are among those which have made the clearest pictures of space yet using revolutionary technology developed by British and American scientists. This 'Lucky Picture' technology allows ground-based telescopes such as these to capture images free of atmospheric distortion, which has always given the Hubble space-based telescope an edge on coventional ones. The developers hope to make the technology widely availabel, greatly enhancing the image quality of any ground-based telescope that uses it. Astronomers say the improved clarity of these images will lead to better understanding of how star clusters behave, among other things -- Picture by Lightroom Photos / ESO