Do ESO observatories only see the southern skies?
The region of the sky visible from the Earth changes with latitude. If we could stand at the South Pole, we would only see the southern sky. As we move north towards the equator, the pole goes down from the zenith to the horizon and a larger part of the northern sky becomes visible. ESO observatories are located at a latitude of about 23°S, making the northern sky theoretically visible up to 67°N. Thus 95% of the whole sky is visible from the ESO sites in Chile. As the telescopes cannot point down to the horizon, 87% of the whole sky can be observed by ESO telescopes.
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