Vicuna, a small town in the north of Chile, is a great place for watching stars all year round. Although it is near the sea, the cold, wet air from the coast does not bring clouds. Instead, dry winds from the desert keep the clouds away at night. In fact, the sky is so clear in Vicuna that it is possible to see many stars that can be seen only with advanced(先进的) instruments in other parts of the world.
In Vicuna, distant(遥远的) star systems such as Magellanic Clouds can be seen without the help of an instrument. That is why the town was chosen as the home of a number of sky observatories(天文台). One of them, the Mamalluca, is quite different from the typical observatories used by scientists. This observatory was built for tourists who like to look at the stars. During the year, Vicuna's hotels accommodate thousands of tourists who come from all over the world to see the night sky as they have only seen it in books. The cloudless sky is clearly a moneymaker for the town, which plans to set up even more observatories. It was recently decided that building observatories would go on for another few years.
At one point, however, the town faced a serious problem. As the town grew, more streetlights were added, making it more and more difficult to see the stars at night. The town saved the night sky by building a new system of lights that lit up the streets without influencing the view of the sky.
