There may be a tendency to think that all the cool pictures come from NASA, but here is one that caught my eye today from the ESO (European Southern Observatory in Chile) home to the Very Large Telescope (VLT), the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory.

360 Pararamic view of the night sky: CreditESO/H.H. Heyer

This is an image of the Milky Way in a 360-degree panorama of the night sky above the Paranal platform, home of ESO’s Very Large Telescope. You can also see the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, our other two close galaxy neighbours below the arc of the Milky Way. The image was constructed from 37 shots and is visually both unusual and stunning.  You can see the open domes of the telescopes in the image too.

Click on the image to go the ESO where you can download hi-res images.