Atacama Desert Stargazing Outing, San Pedro de Atacama

The Stargazing Tour was an unexpected delight. JP gave a great presentation before the tour, and his wife Valeria was very knowledgeable during the telescope session. It exceeded our expectations. It was a very pleasant surprise that it was so interesting.

The stargazing tour itself was very cool. The pickup and drop off were being changed/coordinated through WhatsApp somewhat last minute. The drivers did not speak any English, but the tour itself did have a translator.

This tour was second only to the salt flats. We were able to view the stars through telescopes. Tour guide took pictures and emailed to us, that was a nice and unexpected gift.

This tour is so informative! You will get a chance to use one or more telescopes to see some incredible celestial bodies.

Watchin Saturn Rings and Band of Jupiter along with the Nebula was the highlight of this trip for me. Getting a few tips/lessons in astronomy before stargazing was also fun.

This was enjoyable, but prepare yourself for it to be very cold and it goes much longer than I expected

The guide has a very boring way to explain actually very interesting stories. We were 15 people and you could see that 10 of us were very bored. On each question his answer was at least 15min in Spanish and then 15min in English. And after 2 of these minutes we were just not able to listen any more

This was a life changing experience. It is hard to describe how truly incredible the night sky is in Atacama.
We were picked up promptly from our hotel. Initially there was some confusion because we were told that the tour would be in English, and when we were picked up the driver only spoke Spanish. However, when we arrived at the destination the actual guides spoke Spanish and English. There were about 20-25 people participating, and we were broken up into three groups - those of us taking the tour in English were one group and the other two groups were Spanish speaking. The groups took turns at the three stations. Our groups' first station was the snack station, where our guide told us about the indigenous peoples' relationship to the stars, and about various constellations. There was a fire. It was lovely. We then went to the photography station. They had a very high-tech camera set up so everyone was able to get a photograph that depicted how the sky looked - something regular cameras surely would not have been able to pick up. Finally, we went to the station that had a couple of high-powered telescopes. We looked at Saturn (you could see the rings using the telescope), and this was the most science-heavy part of the tour. We learned about why different stars are different colors, how they are formed and die, etc. Honestly the sky was so incredible on its own that I would have been happy sitting in a field just looking at it, but the tour added some much-appreciated context that made the experience even more special.

I can’t recommend this highly enough. It was so, so amazing and the men giving the lessons were so passionate about the subject. It really was one of the most beautiful skies I have ever seen. We were also given snacks (with homemade jam and mayonnaise made by one of the men’s mothers) and wine, and got to sit around a fire while we ate and drank. It was a very special tour and I would do it again if I returned To San Pedro.

The stargazing tour was changed to moon gazing due to the weather and lack of stars. The tour was eventually canceled, but a refund was received.