- A mysterious abandoned Soviet mission, a divided society in the last years of the dictatorship, the urgency to obtain resources to rehabilitate miners with silicosis, and a group of passionate science teachers allowed the first tourist observatory in Chile to be built.
- More than 30 thousand people from Chile and abroad gathered to witness the passage of Halley’s Comet, thus creating the first major astronomical event recorded on national territory.
By Rossie Ibarra Concha
In March 1985, the central zone of Chile was afflicted by a powerful earthquake that devastated houses and buildings in the cities of Santiago, Valparaíso, and Rancagua. In the north, there was preoccupation about the reconstruction of the cities in the south and the policy became incipient in conversations between reliable friends and family. In the Basic Science Department of the Atacama University, the physics teachers Ricardo Leiva and Mario Ibarra, created the CAUDA (abbreviation for Astronomy Club of the Atacama University in Spanish) as a way to motivate university students of the physics courses in Astronomy and the phenomena of the cosmos.
Meanwhile, a rumor circulated among students and teachers in the southern area of UDA (University of Atacama), and it was about the existence of a warehouse that possessed technology abandoned by a Soviet scientific mission in which Chile collaborated in the 70’s. While no one knew for sure what this was about, the scholars Ibarra and Leiva, driven by curiosity and the desire to provide some technological equipment to the emerging CAUDA group, requested the then rector, Vicente Rodríguez Bull, to authorize the review and use of these tools.
“It was a shed that now is a Chemistry unit -remember the teacher Leiva-. In the shed there were artifacts that were taken out from a Russian observatory that was established in La Peineta hill [Diego de Almagro], which came up in the 70’s under Allende government. In addition to those observatories there were others like El Roble, which was also Russian located in Tiltil zone. Those two observatories were able to make activities, but, La Peineta one, was just being settled and with them came a series of object that includes an exploration telescope with an 8.5-inche diameter mirror. Afterward, those implements were taken out by the hill’s militia and store in the Universidad Tecnologica del Estado’s warehouse, now known as UDA”.
Cold war’s Sovietic telescopes
“They were going to be removed, nobody wanted to deal with this type of material, because it could even generate an international conflict. There is where we found this telescopes that missed some parts, and even there were packed parts that were never used. That is why we talked to the dean, and after some back and forth, he agreed, but aware that it was a complex situation. The dean thought that those were weapons from the Cold War, but we explained that they were telescopes. 30 years after we discover that they were Soviet army’s telescopes and that their plan was to monitor the stars that release a certain type of wavelengths to guide the military satellites that they were going to launch,” explained Professor Leiva, who is currently retired and preside the Orion Astronomical Society in Copiapo
The challenge of rescuing the material and making use of it began once the permits from the University were obtained. It was a task that was not easy due to it being Soviet scientific technology, a field that local scientists were unaware of. That is why more people from the private sector supported it, such as Torneria Resk, which assisted in the restoration and assembly of the pieces. They realized that they needed to move the telescopes out of the University and install them in a darker location that would allow for clearer observation of the skies.
Rehabilitation Center for Miners With Silicosis
One of the most enthusiastic physics students of the Atacama University and member of CAUDA, Eduardo Catalano, was a miner and director of the Miner Association of Copiapo(ASOMICO). Knowing his interest for astronomy, but also his possibility to help in the management of a place in the dessert that have the conditions to settle a possible point of observation, the scholars talked with him to explore the possibilities.
The Miners Association of Copiapo was presided by Jorge Sánchez Araya It happened that one of the challenges that the ASOMICO has in that moment was the creation of a Rehabilitation Center for miners with silicosis, a desired goal for the workers of small and medium miner of Copiapo that has been suffer health problems due to the years of exposition to the silica dust.
The Center needed resources to be built. The implementation of an astronomy observatory with the soviet telescopes seems to be a viable option to generate the needed resources through the collection of entrance fees.
And in the middle of all that, not only at a national level but international, it was known that a celestial traveler would soon appear in the Chilean skies with all its splendor and in a privileged manner – in terms of observing the phenomenon–, the now famous Halley’s Comet (see the box)
That is how the goals of scholars and miners came together and defined a common objective. It only needed a suitable place, and for that, Eduardo Catalano managed a space on a hill in Quebrada Los Cóndores sector, close to what is the tailings area of Fundicion Paipote (Paipote’s Foundry) and Camino Internacional C31 (International Road C31). Its connection with the city made vehicular access and energy connection feasible.
An achievement in record time
The activity that took place with the launching of the observatory was incessant in the months of February and March 1986. The Regional Government took part in the effort by providing logistic and road support, making a road to the hill accessible. The electric company at that time created a complete line of power poles and electric connection from the highway to the hill where two domes were installed. Parking lots, booths with restroom and a coffee shop were set up. The Miner Association of Copiapo funded the constructions of the towers and the fiberglass domes that let the accommodation and protection of the telescopes, which, ultimately only one could be put in operation with pieces of both instruments, thanks to the technical help from the physicist and expert from the Tololo Observatory, Gabriel Martin Castillo and from the instrumentalist of the same center, Arturo ‘Objeto‘ Gómez, who calibrated and enabled the available technology.»
Finally, and throughout months of effort, preparation and a lot of sacrifice, this group of adventurers and dreamers achieve –unwittingly–a time record in the assemble of what will be the first astronomical tourist observatory of Chile, named in honor of the ravine were is located. There, in the middle of the dessert, in a mound of Teresita sector and just 16 northeast kilometers away from Copiapo, the two domes of the Observatory shined imposed and lay all the region to look at the sky, expectant before the arrival of the celestial traveler
Since March 17 and through three months the Los Condores Observatory worked at full swing. The highest influx of visitors was recorded between April 8 and 30, this was the period when the best visibility of the Halley’s phenomenon was expected. Through all night and until the early morning, this group of volunteers –mostly students of the Atacama University in love with Astronomy, – they attended to the public and helped them to understand not only the comet, but also the stars and clusters, the Moon and cosmos. It was a unique opportunity for the community to look at its skies with new eyes and create an instance of reunion with neighbors and friends. any of those who visited the place remember that the base of the hill was used as an improvised point for conversation and parties. Families would gather in large groups, arriving in cars, minibuses, and buses, equipped with grills and picnic supplies to enhance the comet’s passage with food and drinks. After many years of living surrounded by restrictions and indoors, the families and friends of Copiapó and Atacama could come together with this particular event to talk and participate massively.
Among the memories recorded in the guestbook, authorities, students, and the citizens expressed their feelings regarding the comet. It was the first-time miners from Atacama switched their gaze from the ground and turned it toward the skies. Despite this, the expectations were not achieved, and Halley only showed a part of its splendor But, a common goal, a scientific and citizen party, achieved what appeared to be difficult at that time. An entry in the visitors’ book rendered count of the common sentiment, ‘Farewell Halley, finally everyone united looking at the cosmos’.
Box:
A SHINING BRIGHTLY SKY
The astronomer from INCT UDA, Dr. Mario Soto, explains that Halley’s Comet “is particularly important in the collective imagination due to its visits to the Earth every 74 to 79 years since time immemorial. There are entries of it from hundreds of years ago before the beginning of the Christian era in different cultures throughout the world.”.
However, in Chile, its last passage was a distracting element during Pinochet’s dictatorship in the previous years to the political transition. The protest journeys have not been stopped in three years, and the Secretary-General of the Government, Francisco Javier Cuadra, gives maximum diffusion to this event (as well as the seer of Villa Alemana.)
In 2009 in an interview with the magazine Que Pasa, Cuadra was consulted about this mediatic manipulation. He answered:” (…) the Halley’s comet existed, and the thing that was done was a communicational pattern that privileged that information, the same as the communicational patterns done today (…) It is funny to me that it became the object of doctoral theses, given that on a daily basis, the media choose which information to emphasize.”
After all the expectation, the comet only shows a little fraction of its tail. Soto clarifies why: “In its maximum closeness to the Sun (when it is brighter), the Earth was on the other side of the Sun, that is why it hindered its observation.” Dr. Soto asserts that Halley’s next passage in 2062 will be around 100 times brighter than the one in 1986.
