My personal passion about astronomy dated back to 1986, when the Halley comet basically caught my attention in every sense and consequence. Ever since, the driving force of my life has been observing the Universe and enjoying the best music of the Universe.

My first amateur observatory was the “Cerro Pochoco Observatory”, operated by ACHAYA (Asociacion Chilena de Astronomia y Astronautica), the largest association of amateur astronomers in Chile. In this organization, I learnt the astronomy basis to quickly move my hobby into the analog astro-photography with film and photographic plates. At ACHAYA I took a role as instructor in the basic astronomy courses taught at the observatory covering the topic “Observation and description of the sky”. Later on I was elected as a member of the executive board of ACHAYA.

In 1993, I moved from Santiago de Chile to La Serena, to start my career as staff observer at the Southern Columbia Millimetre Telescope (SCMT), at the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory (CTIO). The SCMT was a small 1.2m radio-telescope designed to study the distribution and properties of dense, star-forming molecular clouds in our Galaxy and its nearest neighbors. Data produced over the history with the SCMT and his twin in New York, revealed the existence of two spiral arms in the Milky Way, structures that were previously unknown.

Happy days indeed that came together with the birth of my son Santiago Felipe Mac Auliffe Contreras, October 25th 1993.

Late 1994 the SCMT was decommissioned and I started to work as alternate resident astronomer for the University of Toronto Southern Observatory (UTSO), at Las Campanas Observatory (LCO). I was back into the optical window and surrounded by the magic of being at the telescope platform, with the lid open and Pink Floyd and Los Jaivas levitating the dome by sound waves, loud and under the stars.

In 1996 I moved back to radio waves and to work at the largest sub millimetric radio telescope in the southern hemisphere by that time: The Swedish ESO Submillimetre Telescope (SEST). I was absolutely amazed about just everything … actually that same year and month the Hiakutake comet offered an amazing view. Will never forget that long tail rising the eastern horizon!

So my career at the "European Southern Observatory (ESO)" got started and still going on and forward.

As in September 2003, the SEST radiotelescope was decommissioned and I moved into the science operations group of the "Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment (APEX)" in San Pedro de Atacama. The APEX project is a collaboration among different European partners and hosted in Chile. The telescope has been in operation for more than 18 years and hopefully, with lot more to go.

And worth to mention that on September 3rd 2003, my son Felipe Guillermo Mac Auliffe López was born and, two years later on April 16th 2005, my son Joakin Fernando Mac Auliffe López was born.

But after all of these years working in professional astronomy, something was missing in my life ... And it was actually the ability to take good images of the night sky using my own equipment and, to some extent, reconnect with my passion about observational astronomy, starting from the very basis.

I was needing a kind of back to the roots with no control rooms, with direct sight to the night sky.

Anyhow, I recall the year 2007 and the amazing pass of the comet McNaught. It was absolutely mind blowing, naked eye object and playing the role of the most obvious and amazing visible object in the evening western sky.

And to my disappointment, I didn’t even have a good camera to take pictures of it … bad and sad.

Well, that comet ignited the engine to start seriously in astrophotography. And wow … I was absolutely convinced that the next spectacular comet will not find me unprepared.

The breakpoint came with the total solar eclipse of La Serena in July 2019 … it simply did the trick and got the engine running with even more power and new energy.

In this wonderful journey, my children got into the hobby and all together as a family team, we decided to name our project as "Cluster One Observatory", in clear reference to Pink Floyd "The Division Bell" album, that was released when I was working at the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory. "Cluster One" is the opening number of the album and just by an astonishing coincidence, the artwork features the domes of the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory ... and I was there ... fulfilling my dreams mapping CO in the galactic plane while listening Pink Floyd. Check out this page for more details.

Anyhow, the cluster one journey is going and going as every single photon hits our telescopes.

All the best, clear skies and shine on !

Felipe Mac Auliffe Prieto - fauliffe@eso.org

June 9th, 2023

P.S. I would like to dedicate this personal page to my good old friend Juan Ruben Mena, who passed away some years ago. He among others, are still with us, living in our memories after they’ve gone.