Observatorio Turístico Collowara
- Address
- 599 Urmeneta St Andacollo
- Website
- Phone
- tel, booking: 051 432 964
- Price
- concession US$4.00, full US$6.00, child US$2.60
- Hours
- two-hour tours: summer 21:00, 22:30 & 23:30
Lonely Planet review for Observatorio Turístico Collowara
This shiny new observatory is built for tourists; no serious interstellar research is conducted here, but the facility boasts a 40cm (16in) telescope for stargazing. Book at the ticket office in nearby Andacollo, and inquire there about transport to the hilltop observatory. Since the sessions are late, you can either stay overnight in Andacollo, or take an organized tour from La Serena.
Traveller reviews for Observatorio Turístico Collowara (1)
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Nice location - very boring tour
munizaga does not recommend this,
To go to the observatory you need to first pay for admittance at the office in the downtown Andacollo at 599 Urqueta - it is one block south of the main plaza -it is open until 9.00pm. If you wait until 9.00pm there is a lead car which shows you the road to the observatory or you can just follow the signs - it is pretty easy to find and surprisingly well signposted. When you get there they tend to control what you do - first they make you sit through the movie Cosmic Voyage with voiceover by morgan freeman - about 30 minutes - my kids fell asleep during this. After this they give a talk very quickly in a robot monotone - then they take you to an outside telescope and a tour guide explains where is orion, milky way etc - our tour was all done in spanish - i don't know if they know any english - then you get to look through a cheap telescope for about 30 seconds at each thing they want to show - then they hand you to another tour guide who takes you to the big telescope(it is not that big - i think a 14" meade) in the Cupola and it is the same script. Generally the tour is very boring - we were just waiting for it to be over - could they find some people who ask you what you want to see and tell a few jokes - there must be some astronomy jokes.. The staff don't want you going anywhere other than where they take you and heaven forbid you touch a telescope. The whole format is terrible - in the three hours there i probably looked through a telescope for five or six times for a total of 3 minutes. There were only 8 people when we were there - why not have four on the outside telescope with one tour guide and four in the copula with the other guide for half an hour and then switch - all i wanted to see was the rings of saturn but i couldn't make them out on the telescope they had - the tour guides tell you they are there to serve and answer questions and when we asked to see certain planets or other questions and they just brushed us off - it seems to be all about them doing their tour then getting out of there.
There is a small shop where they have sandwiches, coffee tea etc. The night we were there it was warm in the centre of Andacollo but up at the ovbservatory it was windy and very cold. Also there is a lot of light contamination coming from the towns on the west coast - Coquimbo and la serena.
The tour starts at about 9.10 pm and finished around 11.30 and we hang around until 12.00 looking at the stars outside. It costs Ch$3,500 for adults and Ch$2,500 - it is ok for something to do but have big expectations of seeing much through a telescope.
