Yes, it’s my book. “A Breathtaking Window on the Universe: A guide to the observatory at the Roque de los Muchachos SECOND EDITION” By Sheila M. Crosby (Non-Fiction Paperback) 164 pages (16 more than the first edition) Welcome to the Roque de Los Muchachos, where 15 telescopes from 19 nations use the best night sky in Europe to explore the cosmos. Find out what it’s like to work in this strange…
I bought a wonderful calendar for 2014 with pastel paintings of nebulae by the local artist Vanessa Sancho. I like the paintings so much that I still have the calendar. Alas, there wasn’t a 2015 calendar, but there will be one for 2016. Actaully make that October 2015 – March 2017. The caldendar is bilingual (English-Spanish) with gorgeous pastel paintings, plus moon phases, and dates for equinoxes, meteor showers…
It’s Fiesta de la Cruz again. I was really busy this year, so I just went for a quick look at Calle Rodriguez Lopez, the street in Santa Cruz where they have all the mayos. As always, it was fun. This year they had a theme of jobs and professions.
Fiesta de La Cruz is a major festival in Santa Cruz de La Palma, Breña Alta, and Breña Baja. On the night of May 2nd (Saturday), practically all the roadside crosses in Santa Cruz, Breña Baja and Breña Alta will be decorated, most of them gorgeously. The people who worked on them sit close all night, usually making a party of it and setting off lots of fire-crackers. This…
The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is negotiating with the IAC to site more Cherenkov telescopes on La Palma. It’s not guarenteed that they’ll come here, but it’s highly likely. What is certain is that they’re going to build a prototype here. So what’s a Cherenkov telescope? The oversimplification is that it’s a telescope to look at gamma rays instead of visible light. For more detail, see this article on…
I love Christina’s shop. She started off in the local flea market, selling fancy knitting yarn in the most wonderful colours. I always wanted to buy the lot and spend the next year knitting. Now she has a shop on the Calle Real, still selling the yarn, but also finished knitware and costume jewelry which she makes herself out of local lava and coral, with silver or gold-plated silver…