A Breathtaking Window on the Universe: A guide to the observatory at the Roque de Los Muchachos
Today I sent my book off to the printers. It should be on sale in 3-4 weeks.
Month: October 2012
Lovely Monday
The cover of my book. This morning I showed a group of Austrian amateur astronomers around some telescopes, had lunch “up top” and got down about 4 pm. Not long after, the EcoGeek team showed up with a pen drive, and we finally uploaded the book about the observatory to the printers. Well we tried. The transfer kept timing out. But eventually I managed to send it via Dropbox this…
A storm
Well obviously it’s nothing like Sandy, but we’ve got bad weather here, with strong winds, gusting to 120 km/h on the peaks and intermittent buckets of rain. The schools are closed, the road tot eh observatory is most emphatically closed, most optional activities are cancelled and parts of the island are without power. The sea is wild, with huge walls of spray chasing catspaws. One good thing – the rain…
A storm
Update:And about 50 people who live on the edge of ravines in Mazo have been evacuated. I don’t know if the authorities are worried about flooding or landslides or both. The airport is closed. The roads into the Caldera and Los Tilos are closed, the one up to the top east-west tunnel (and the lower tunnel is bi-directional) as is the “mimbres” road – the old one around the north…
Paperwork for publishers.
I just got back from a long weekend in El Hierro. I did it again you know. I thought I’d have finished the book by now, so I booked a long weekend away to relax and celebrate. And I haven’t finished. so the “holiday” was punctuated with checking proofs for the book, and chasing up the ISBN and “Deposito Legal” and so on. In addition to the photos I’d promised…
Pre-hispanic Ceramics in Mazo
Inside the workshop at El Molino The Benahoaritas (or Auaritas or Awaras) were the people who lived on La Palma before the Spanish invasion. They lived in caves and wore animal skins, but they farmed, and they had ceramics. The older ceramics are simpler, and the newer ones usually more decorated. At El Molino, in Mazo, they make replicas of these ceramics. The business was started by Ramon and Vina,…