During October, Las Campanas Observatory carried out several outreach activities in the context of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first light of the Swope telescope and the month of science in Chile.
One of them was a webinar called "History of LCO and The Carnegie Observatories", held on October 14 and broadcasted through the LCO Youtube channel. In it, the Director of the observatory, Leopoldo Infante, told the advances in astronomy due to the research developed in Chile, and which are the future projects and main challenges.
On the occasion of this celebration, a group of 15 journalists from international press agencies visited the observatory's facilities in the mountains, together with representatives of Sernatur (Chile's National Tourism Service) and Imagen de Chile. This visit was led by Dr. Leopoldo Infante and Dr. Francesco Di Mille, Technical Operations Manager, who guided the visit through the Clay telescope and the night observations with the Swope telescope.
In addition, on the same day, at the end of the webinar, a virtual tour through the LCO facilities was premiered, recreating the step-by-step of a night of observation. It can be visited at https://visita.lco.cl.
This tour was also part of the second online version of the Festival of Science (FECI), held between October 20 and 24. This instance was designed by the Science and Society Division of the Ministry of Science, with the purpose of approaching, appropriating and enjoying the topics and phenomena of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation (CTCI).
Another important point for LCO is inclusion. For this reason, together with Dedoscopio, a project integrated by astronomers Carla Fuentes (LCO telescope operator) and Pamela Paredes -which began in 2018 with tactile talks in the Biobío region, but soon began with activities in other communities throughout the country, and which is currently part of the TITANS Millennium Nucleus-, an in-person workshop on telescopes was held for children and young people with visual disabilities in the fourth region of Chile. This workshop, led by Dedoscopio, had been held on three previous occasions, but always online.
Finally, between October 21 and 23, 2021 LCO participated as a collaborator in the seventh version of the National Physics Didactics Meeting. This three-day virtual meeting had lectures, exhibitions and workshops .On the other hand, LCO also participated as co-organizer of the seminar "Past, present and future", whose third session was held in October. More information can be found in this note: https://www.lco.cl/seminar-on-chiles-astronomical-heritage-came-to-an-end/