MY (PHOTOGRAPHIC) NEWS SECTION:

Welcome to my news photo-blog! Below there is a selection of images, related to my trips, work and other activities that I have carried out or participated in, either in Chile or abroad. All photographs have been taken by myself (© R. Demarco, 2014-2022), unless explicitly stated otherwise.

December 21st, 2018: a very early start at 4:00 am in San Pedro de Atacama was the starting point for a trip to the famous El Tatio's Geysers. This is the 3rd largest geyser field in the world and the largest one south of the Equator, located about 85 km from San Pedro at an elevation of about 4,300 meters. El Tatio means "crying grandfather", referring to an old man's face silhouette seen at the edge of one of the nearby mountain ranges and the water vapour from the geysers. The vapours are most spectacular when the ambient temperature is about that of the dew point, that's way it's important to get there before sunrise. After 8:00-9:00 am in summer time, pretty much all the geysers' fumes are all gone. The road to El Tatio is amazing, with mountains, active volcanoes, wetlands, lagoons, picturesque little town, and beautiful flora and fauna along the way. The pictures below try to be a representative sample of what you can see in a day-trip to El Tatio. From top to bottom: the geysers' vapours (top three images); a "gaviota andina" (Andean Seagull) taking off; waters in the geysers' field showing very distinctive colors due to extremophile bacteria; a herd of vicuñas on the way back to San Pedro; a wetland by the small town of Putana; the church at the small town of Machuca; a panoramic view of the town of Machuca from its church; the road back to San Pedro with the impressive Sairecabur volcano in the background; the green ravine leading to the Puritama's thermal baths; the very pretty gully of "Los Cactus" (The Cacti); and the beautiful flower of one the cacti in the Los Cactus gully.





December 19th, 2018: this is the closest looking place on planet Earth to the planet Mars: the Mars Valley, in the "Cordillera de La Sal" (Salt Mountain Range) near San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. Both photographs were taken from the lookout located at the highest point in the park, at an elevation of about 2,640 meters above see level. The Licancabur and Juriques volcanoes can be seen in the background. The full traverse of the park is about 8 kilometers. If you really want to feel like an astronaut on Mars, come to this place!





December 18th, 2018: The top three pictures were taken at Laguna Chaxa's visitor's center area, near the town of Toconao, in the Atacama Desert, Chile. Flamingos are, of course, the main attraction of the park. It's amazing how close you can get to these birds. Their pink color is due to their diet, rich in alpha and beta carotenoid pigments obtained from eating small shrimps present in the water. The bottom photograph was captured during a beautiful sunset at the edge of a small hill near San Pedro de Atacama by the road to El Tatio geysers.





December 17th, 2018: the first two pictures, from top to bottom, show my second visit to the ALMA array on Chajnantor at about 5,000 meters of elevation in the Atacama desert in Chile. The collection of telescopes were in the compact configuration which allows the system to obtain a large angular coverage on the sky at the expense of angular detail. Only a very small number of readiotelescopes in such configuration can be seen behind me in the top picture, taken by Thais Mandiola (ALMA Observatory). The following two photographs show vicuñas on the road that connects the array of ALMA antennae with the operation center of the observatory at about 2,900 meters, and the nearby town of San Pedro de Atacama at about 2,400 meters of elevation. The famous Licancabur volcano can be seen in the background.





December 16th, 2018: at about 73 kilometers north-east of the city of Antofagasta in Chile, there is the small town of Baquedano, home to a still active train station founded in 1910. Currently, the station is used to support the transport by rail of large (and heavy!) copper plates produced by the maining activity in the region. More interesting even it is the historic railway station that can be visited for free! There it is possible to see a few relatively well-preserved locomotives, walk around the turntable built to serve 16 of those machines, and get onto one of the passenger wagons that, unfortunately, needs to be restored (as well as most of the facilities in the seemingly abandoned station). The top photograph shows one of the locomotives in the old station, whereas the next image below it shows part of the trains still in operation. The next picture shows the remains of one of the buildings of the old and abandoned nitrate town of Chacabuco, at only about 32 kilometers north-east from Baquedano. Founded in 1924, it once contributed to the very active nitrate industry in Chile until the 1930s. It was also used in 1973-1974 as a concetration camp during Pinochet's dictatorship. The bottom photograph shows an out-of-this-world place on our planet: the Moon Valley, a geological formation near San Pedro de Atacama that, together with the Mars Valley, forms part of the "Cordillera de La Sal" (Salt Mountain Range) in northern Chile.





December 15th, 2018: a long day from Antofagasta, into the Atacama desert, to a high-tech scientific outpost to explore the Cosmos. First stop, the "hand in the desert" (top image). Final stop, the European Southern Observatory on Cerro Paranal. One of the four 8-meter-diameter telescopes (UT4) is positioned horizontally, prior to opening its dome, to prevent debris from falling on the telescope's main mirror (middle image). Near sunset, the other 3 telescopes of the Paranal Observatory get ready to start exploring the universe (bottom image).





December 14th, 2018: the Atacama desert in northern Chile, due to its exceptionally good conditions for astronomical observations, is home to some of the major observatories in the world: the Carnegie Science's Las Campanas Observatory (top) and the ESO's Paranal Observatory (bottom).





November 2nd, 2018: On the way back to Chile from Mexico. The photograph at the top shows part of the city of Guadalajara, state of Jalisco, some minutes after take off. This city was home of the Feria Internacinal del Libro (FIL), a truly amazing experience! The middle photograph, captured moments before landing in Mexico City, delivers only a very limited impression of how big that city really is. It is certainly one of the largests in the world. The bottom picture corresponds to the last seconds of the final approach on to Mexico City airport, just before landing. An Iberia plane is seen on one of the taxi ways waiting its turn to get in position for take off.





November 1st, 2018: The speakers of the International Colloquium of Astronomy, Universe and Society (CIAUS) of the Feria Internacinal del Libro (FIL) de Guadalajara, Mexico. From left to right: Dr. Elena Terlevich, Dr. Roberto Terlevich, Dr. Vladimir Avila-Reese, Dr. Sandra Faber, Dr. Alberto Nigoche (main organizer), Dr. Roger Davis, myself, Dr. Itziar Aretxaga, Dr. Jesús González, and Dr. Horacio Dottori. Very impressive to be among all those giant stars! The picture was taken with my celphone by an unknown source.





November 5th, 2018: a Geology fild trip to the mouth of the Biobío River near Concepción, Chile. This activity took place as part of an inter-disciplinary (Geology, Anthropology, and Astronomy) joint course between the University of Concepción (UdeC) and the University of Cincinnati. Here, the 6 Chilean students and 3 professors (including me) at UdeC participating in the course had a very interesting morning talking about geology and the physical processes that shaped the local landscape. The photograph at the top shows the interface between the Biobío River and the Pacific Ocean, right at the mouth of the former, taken from Cerro Ponpón. The bottom picture shows a metamorphic rock formation in the area together with essential work tools for a geologist: a hammer, a map and a notebook.





October 28th, 2018: Exploring amazing caves and beautiful beaches near the town of Lebu, Biobío Region. A captivating natural environment at the shores of the Pacific Ocean in central Chile. An ideal place to disconnect from the daily stress and enjoy the sounds of the ocean and the singing of birds.





October 15th, 2018: Views of the South Celestial Pole (toward the top left) from the Magellan Telescopes at the Carnegie's Las Campanas Observatories in the Atacama desert, Chile. The bright object in the sky is the Moon. To the far right, near the horizon, the car lights on the Panamerican Highway can be seen. These images were obtained from stacking different number of individual exposures from the same timelapse recording. Fewer images were used to produce the top photograph compared to the bottom picture. The stacking was performed with the StarStax software developed by Markus Enzweiler.





October 9th, 2018: A public presentation at the "Ciencia Sin Ficcion" event organized by the Chile 2100 Fundation (top two photographs). About 1,300 persons attended my talk on the Apollo moon missions that was given with the participation of one of the most famous astronomers in Chile: Professor José Maza Sancho. What a honor! Prof. Maza was also one of my professors (I took his class on Extragalactic Astrophysics) when I studied Physics in the 1990s. The third picture from the top is a selfy with José and my friend, journalist and co-worker Marllory Fuentes. The bottom image shows us posing together with Ivan Torres, perhaps the most famous meteorologist in the country who appears every morning on TVN, the National TV Station. The top three photographs were taken by Marllory Fuentes, whereas the bottom one was taken by Boris Muñoz from Fundación Chile 2100.





September 3rd, 2018: An afternoon interview with Isabel Plaza, the general editor of one of the oldest (founded in Concepción in 1882) newspapers in the country: showing a celestial sphere and talking about the importance of science, and in particular astronomy, education to the general public. This photograph courtesy of Diario El Sur.





July 27th, 2018: A hummingbird nest ... with the haummingbird in it! This unexpected sight (on a tree branch right outside the house of my friend and colleague Sergio Torres) was captured with the camera of my iPhone 6! Very good result for that kind of device.





July 26th, 2018: A nice view of the town of Vicuña in the middle of the Elqui Valley. It was taken from the nearby lookout of "Cerro la Virgen". The clear sky of that zone in the Chilean Andes has motivated the installation of major professional astronomical observatories. If you look carefully the photograph right on the skyline delineated by the mountains in the background, you will see 3 of them: (from left to right) SOAR, Gemini South, LSST (currently under construction), and Cerro Tololo Inter-american Observatory (to the far right). This is one of the largest concentrations of professional astronomical facilities on planet Earth.





April 20th, 2018: A wonderful night near Florida, Region of Biobío, Chile. This image was captured in El Manzano, a location a few minutes by car from Florida at a time when the center of our Milky Way galaxy is rising through the South-East. In addition to it, the Magellanic Clouds, Omega Cen and Jupiter are clearly seen. This amazing spectacle was the perfect frame for the 1st School Students Astronomy Meeting organized by the Republic of Brazil School in Concepción whose participants pose for this photograph.





April 8th, 2018: A Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor of the U.S. Air Force in flight during the FIDAE 2018 air show in Santiago, Chile.





April 8th, 2018: Another night of observing with Magellan on Las Campanas Observatory. The image at top clearly shows the Milky Way galaxy stretching across the sky avobe the observatory. Part of its central region (the bulge of the Galaxy) can be seen reflected on the main mirror of the Baade telescope in the second picture from the top. The two images at the bottom display the light effects created by the motion of the telescope and the dome during closing at the end of the observation. The bright object seen in them is the Moon.





April 7th, 2018: Telescope operations at twilight and night from inside the dome! It is not always easy to get access to photograph a professional telescope while observing. In this case, permission was obtained to take pictures of the Magellan Baade telescope in a moon-lit night during near-infrared observations. In the top three images, the Milky Way can be seen through the slit of the dome, and its reflection on the telescope's main mirror was captured on the third picture from top to bottom. This one also shows the moon as it becomes visible right through the edge of the dome's aperture. The first, fourth and fifth images from the top, on the other hand, recorded the very nice and artistic choreography of both the dome and the telescope, whereas the bottom photograph shows Orion right through the dome's aperture.





April 7th, 2018: The Las Campanas Observatory at sunset. From left to right, the telescopes are: Swope, Polish, Du Pont, and Magellan. At the left end of the photograph and in the background, near the roof of some of the observatory's dorms, ESO's La Silla Observatory can be seen.





April 5th-6th, 2018: Back at the Las Campanas Observatory to observe with the Magellan/Baade telescope (see photograph). In the top image, the dome is illuminated from the inside while it is rotated, producing a nice motion-and-lighting effect. Note that the upper segment of the telescope itself can be seen. The light was produced by observatory staff working inside the dome, trying to solve a problem with one of the instruments. Up in the sky, the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds (to the right) dominate the night-time landscape. On the way back to the bedroom from the telescope (see bottom image), a time for a selfie! The galactic center can be seen right above the mirror.





February 8th, 2018: The University of Cincinnati (main campus) as seen from Clifton Avenue in a beautiful winter late afternoon. The main administration building (the one with the tower) and the Van Wormer Hall (to the right) appear facing a colorful sunset.





February 5th, 2018: In memoriam of Neil A. Armstrong, professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Cincinnati (1971-1979): CEAS Library (top) and Rhodes Hall (bottom).





February 4th, 2018: the Cincinnati's skyline as seen from a viewing point besides the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge in Covington, Kentucky.





February 3rd, 2018: The Cincinnati Zoo, in a very cold winter day. Several outdoor exhibits were closed to protect animals from the harsh temperatures. Except for some that seemed to do just fine in the cold weather, such as the Cheetah (top) and the Polar Bear (bottom). In its nice indoor environment, a water turtle enjoys itself freely swimming in front of the visitors and among a variety of color fishes. Not so far away, but outside in its own house, an impressive bald eagle enjoys its lunch (and so the polar bear too!).





February 2nd, 2018: A visit to the Cincinnati observatory, the oldest professional astronomical observatory in the United States. The observatory was originally built on Mount Ida, overlooking Cincinnati, in the 1840's, and it was moved to its current location, on Mount Lookout, in 1873. It has two refractors, the 1845 11-inch Merz und Mahler (top two photographs) and the 1904 16-inch Alvan Clark & Sons. The former is perhaps the oldest continually used telescope in the world. The top two pictures correspond to our osbervations of the Orion's nebula (the Orion's belt can be seen through the dome slit on the second image from top to bottom). The middel two photos correspond to the moon as seen with the 11-inch Merz und Mahler refractor and taken by Aaron Eiben with my iPhone through the eyepiece. The Sea of Tranquility -where Apollo 11 first landed on the moon- can be seen near the center and left edge of the 3rd and 4th image from top to bottom, respectively. The bottom two photographs show some VIP visitors of the Cincinnati Observatory: Neil Armstrong, professor of the University of Cincinnati (commander of the Apollo 11 mission), and myself! Note the same background in the photos, a nice mosaic of the moon in one of the observatory's rooms. My portrait at the very bottom was also taken by Aaron Eiben (the person in the green sweater in the top photo).





January 14th, 2018:The famous, rugged landscape of the Oregon coast as seen a few kilometers south from Gold Beach near noon. A thin layer of fog is noticeable in the background close to the horizon.





January 13th, 2018: Bautiful sunset from a beach in Gold Beach, Oregon. Typical at this time of the year and at this latitude, the event took place at about 5:05 PM!





January 8th, 2018: Sunrise at DFW airport. Waiting for a flight to Portland, Oregon, after a long flight from Santiago in Chile.