Presentation of the OCM at the Polish Embassy in Santiago de Chile

April has been an eventful month for the Araucaria Project, because we took part in a series of events leading to the local, Chilean inauguration of the Rolf Chini Cerro Murphy Observatory (OCM for short).

OCM has been inaugurated on November 28, 2023, at the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland, which is covered in this post. That inauguration, although first and very distinguished, was quite remote, as it happened far away from the observatory itself.

To create a more in-person experience of the OCM inauguration, a local ceremony was planned at the end of April 2024, and preceded by a few smaller celebrations that built up the excitement for the inauguration day.

The second of them happened on Friday, April 19, 2024 in the gardens of the Polish Embassy in Santiago de Chile. Here many distinguished scholars, diplomats, and other esteemed guests of Polish and Chilean nationalities met to celebrate OCM, and discuss the present and future of this international astronomical project.

The biggest highlight of the event was the presentation of the observatory by Grzegorz Pietrzyński – the leader of the Araucaria Project, and Rolf Chini – the founder of the observatory.

The close second place was taken by Polish faworki 😉