100xCiencia was a conference about scienec journalism and outreach. I’d have loved to go to the public talk, but I was so busy catching up after Astrofest that I didn’t hear about it until afterwards. On the other hand, I did get two days guiding work out of it: one trip to the observatory pon Thursday and one to the north of the island on Sautday. The trip to the…
From 25th September 2015 to October 9th, the island of La Palma in the Canaries will host Astrofest, a festival of astronomy, with activities for all ages and knowledge levels. There will be an international conference for astrotourism professionals, a spectacular total eclipse of the moon, an international conference for nightscape photographers, and a night photography masterclass. You can find more details and register for all these events at…
This morning the ravens came to say hello to my group of tourists. To begin with they’d eat food I left for them, then they moved on to eating out of my hand, and now they’ll jump onto my arm or shoulder, if I make it worth their while. Jose Luis Rodrigo Alonso took this great photo of the cheekier one on my arm, helping himself from the box…
One of the fun things about Thursday’s job was meeting Luis Alberto Hernando. Not only was he the favourite to win this year (which he did in an amazing 6:52:39), but he’s also my kind of bonkers. (For those of you who don’t know Spanish, I’m translating myself into Spanish, and then he’s saying the same thing without the Mad Scientist accent. Very seriously.)
Today 11 of the Transvulcania runners visited the observatory, together with about 20 journalists. Lucky me, I got the job of being their guide. So I showed them around GTC and the MAGIC. It felt a bit odd, because the runners were interested in the telescopes, but the photographers were largely interested in the runners. Well, it’s their job, obviously: they weren’t there for me or the telescopes. But at the end,…
I got a couple of day’s work looking after some Canadian visitors to the island. (Actually they’re Americans who’ve lived in Canada for a long time.) Nice people. They run a hotel called Trout Point Lodge in Nova Scotia, and they’re hoping to start astrotourism over there. They were staying in a hotel I wasn’t previously aware of, the Hacienda de Abajo in Tazacorte. It’s gorgeous – it’s a converted…