Milky Way rainbow

The central bulge of the Milky Way delicately arcs over the ESO’s Paranal Observatory like a celestial rainbow. The Large and

Small Magellanic Clouds can be seen towards the left of the image amid the starstudded backdrop. Paranal Observatory is home to the ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and sits high atop Cerro Paranal in northern Chile’s Atacama Desert.

The VLT is made up of four Unit Telescopes that can be seen just to the right of the centre of the image, and four Auxiliary Telescopes, three of which can be seen to the left, central left and righthand side of the image.