Tonight's stargazing conditions scored 0–100 for cities across South America — from Santiago and Buenos Aires to the Atacama, the world's finest observing site. Find the clearest skies near you, then open the full forecast.
South America hosts the finest professional astronomy on Earth, centred on the Chilean Atacama — the driest, clearest, darkest accessible sky anywhere. ClearSkys scores each location below for tonight using cloud cover, moon phase, wind and humidity. The continent's southern latitudes reveal the full glory of the southern sky, including the Magellanic Clouds and the bright galactic core. From the high Andes to the Argentine pampas, dark skies are rarely far from the major cities.
The Atacama combines extreme aridity, high altitude, minimal light pollution and stable air to deliver Bortle 1 skies with over 330 clear nights a year. It hosts ALMA, the VLT and the forthcoming Extremely Large Telescope — the gold standard for astronomy.
The Magellanic Clouds, the galactic centre overhead, the Southern Cross and rich southern star fields. From dark sites, faint phenomena like the zodiacal light and gegenschein are routinely visible in the dry Andean air.
Central Chile and the Atacama are best from October to April. The southern-hemisphere winter (May-September) places the Milky Way core high overhead. Tropical regions favour their local dry seasons.