Llano de Chajnantor Observatory


Eeny, meeny, miney, moe.

(Only brought up because there's an article on Wired News about it.)

Maybe it's on a slanting site, higher at one end than the other?

16,400 feet according to their own website, equals a suspiciously precise 4999m

Is that ground level or the height of the telescope lens or mirror?

"Located on the Chajnantor plain of the Chilean Andes in the District of San Pedro de Atacama, 5000 m above sea level" so one would assume the ground level. As I say, that 16,400ft/5000m seems a suspiciously round number.

Let's consult the Absolute Astronomy website.

"Llano de Chajnantor Observatory is an astronomical observatory located at 5104 m altitude"

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Ll...ry#encyclopedia

"The Cosmic Background Imager (or CBI) is a 13-element interferometer perched at an elevation of 5,080 metres (16,700 feet) at Llano de Chajnantor Observatory"

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Co...er#encyclopedia

"The Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) is a radio telescope located at 5,100 meters above sea level, at Llano de Chajnantor Observatory"

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/At...nt#encyclopedia

Maybe the third one is a rounded value, but the discrepancy between 5080 and 5104 suggests the site isn't flat.

Folks, do you think maybe the discrepancy in elevations is because there are two buildings on two different plateaus? Or, perhaps the taller elevations were measured before the tips of the peaks were shorn flat?

Good point Greg. My slightly snarkier point would be: If you need to use the altitude information of the location in a setting in which a 1% margin of error was too large to be acceptable, you probably should not be using WP as a source of the information.

My point exactly - the site isn't flat.

Oh looky, an IP address fixed it. How simple.