Good bye, Paranal

Last evening's cloudy sunset seen from the top of Paranal
Everything, sooner or later, comes to an end. This is my last day on Paranal, and it is quite unusual. In fact, last night we started off with a very strong wind, coupled to an extreme humidity. The inversion layer was just crossing the top of Paranal, and dense clouds of vapor were passing through. All telescopes were of course closed. No way we could even thing about opening and observing. So, after watching a weird sunset, we all came down to the control room, waiting for something to happen. The temperature was rapidly dropping, it crossed zero, and eventually reached -6 C. Ice started forming on the metallic surfaces of the building on the top. After a while, we received the order from the Safety Engineer to evacuate the control room: the risk was to get ice on the road down to the base camp, and to get stuck on the top. So, although quite reluctantly, we gave up, packed our stuff and down we went, with a feeling of defiance and incompleteness.
Dead astronomers at the UT2-Kueyen Console.
Observing in this season, when the nights are still long, ...