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Brady Haran is known for the Numberphile and Periodic Table of Videos YouTube channels but also does Deep Sky Videos.

In the video for the Extremely Large Telescope Haran stands at the site of the future ELT and looks down off the edge at another observatory, and says a little after 09:00:

There are a couple of other little observatories around here. There's one run by a local university here in Chile, and that one there is run by Germans; cool little spot. Apparently there's usually someone there. How'd you like to be working there alone?; middle of nowhere.

Another interesting fact actually, this mountain was *almost chosen as the site for the VLT, which ended up over there. So you know it's pretty good for telescopes, and finally it's going to get one, when they build the E-ELT.

Question: What two "little observatories" run by a university in Chile and "by Germans" are near the future site of the Extremely Large Observatory? And when were they built?

screen shot from "Extremely Large Telescope - Deep Sky Videos" https://youtu.be/450jt8LlcnY

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The E-ELT is being built at Cerro Armazones, about 20 km from Paranal where the ESO VLT is sited. Unsurprisingly, the observatory that is already there is known as the the Cerro Armazones Observatory.

This observatory is a collaboration between the German University of Bochum and the Chilean Universidad Catolica del Norte. It was inaugurated on December 2, 1995, and has 1.5-m, 0.8-m and 0.4-m telescopes. These were not sited at the peak of Cerro Armazones but some few hundred metres below it.

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  • $\begingroup$ mea culpa $\endgroup$
    – uhoh
    Commented Jan 12, 2022 at 4:29

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