Northern Chile is one of the best places in the world for star gazing due to the climatic conditions, and the Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA) is currently being constructed close to San Pedro, jointly by Europe, Japan, North America and Chile. When completed, this will be one of the most powerful radio telescopes in the world. The Atacama Desert is cloudless for almost all the year, and athough you cannot visit the ALMA site, there are some amateur astronomy tours in the desert around San Pedro, which can be booked locally. On these, you can view the galaxies through reasonably powerful optical telescopes. It gets very cold at night, so bring warm clothes!