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The Skies of the Southern Hemisphere: the Magellan Project

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July 22-August 2, 2008 Led by MIT Professor Edmund Bertschinger 12 Days/11 Nights • 2 nights aloft (inbound and outbound flight) • 2 nights at the Hotel Plaza El Bosque in Santiago (split) • 3 nights at the Hostería San Pedro in San Pedro de Atacama • 1 night at the Hotel Park in Calama • 1 night at the Hotel Radisson in Antofagasta • 2 nights at the Hotel Costa Real in La Serena Physical Activity Rating: Level 2 [Level Descriptions] This is an exclusive MIT program. "A great adventure - very well organized - led by knowledgeable guides. Awesome nights - Comet McNaught, Easter Island, unworldly landscapes of the Southern Skies! Trip bordered on being arduous at times however we realize it had to be in order to see everything. Anything less would not have been good." - Ed SM '70 & Beverly Kinner 2007 tour participant

Travel with MIT alumni on a specially designed program to Chile - repeated by popular demand. The highlight of our program is a private tour of the amazing telescopes of the Magellan Project at Las Campanas Observatory. The Magellan Project is a collaboration of Observatories of various institutions including MIT, Harvard, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Las Campanas Observatory is located at an altitude of 8,000 feet in the Chilean Andes.

Our program is led by Dr. Edmund Bertschinger, MIT Professor of Physics and Department Head of Astrophysics. He is a theoretical astrophysicist whose research interests focus on cosmology and relativistic astrophysics.

We will also visit the Cerro Tololo Observatory and the Paranal Observatory's (European Southern Observatory) Very Large Telescope.

To complement our visit to the north, we travel to the Atacama Desert, situated in the arid far north, and marked by the Chilean Altiplano. The Atacama is extraordinary in its beauty, geographical scope, and it lies at the base of the Andes, just outside an oasis called San Pedro. Here we will explore some of the most extraordinary landscapes in the world - volcanoes, geysers, evaporated salt lakes, hot springs, petroglyphs, ancient pre-Columbian cultures, and striking landscapes. Also included are visits to the great "Salar de Atacama," with its various species of flamingos; the "El Tatio" with its show of geysers gushing out their morning display at sunrise; "Moon Valley" with its fantastic landscape caused by the erosion of the Salt Mountains; and the "Termas de Puritana" hot springs for a chance to bathe in warm mineral waters. The clear atmosphere and isolation of this area provide wonderful views of the night sky.

During this program the group will travel north (from Santiago) and will stay in the desert and along the coast where the weather is much more temperate than one would expect for winter in northern Chile.

A post-optional tour to Easter Island is available.

To reserve your space on this program, please call the MIT Alumni Travel Program at 800-992-6749 or email the Travel Program at compass@mit.edu.

For pricing information, please see the Trip Pricing and Information page.