The Milky Way over La Silla Observatory, operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). It sits at about 2400 metres above sea level on the outskirts of the Chilean Atacama Desert. La Silla was ESO’s first observatory, inaugurated in 1969. The bright galactic central bulge appears over the 3.6-meter New Technology Telescope (NTT). The Small Magellanic Cloud is also visible on the bottom left (south).