Oddly enough, nobody invited me to meet the king of Spain at the official inauguration of GranTeCan (Gran Telescopio Canario or Big Canarian Telescope) so I had to watch it on the TV. I learned something new. The main mirror is accurate to 15 nanometres (a nanometre is a millionth of a millimetre). So if you scaled up the mirror to 10,400 km (and the radius of the Earth is…
Sneezing taps
Gosh what a long time since I updated this blog! Since I probably can’t catch up, I’ll just carry on from now. Yesterday the council cut off the water all day, to connect new pipes to the existing system. At least they told us well in advance, saying it would last 8 am to 8 pm. This seemed like a really good day to visit my friends in Franceses. So…
GRANTECAN: The big Canarian Telescope
This is GranTeCan (Gran Telescopio Canario / Big Canarian Telescope) on the Roque de los Muchachos observatory in La Palma. It will be inaugurated on July 24th. The king and queen of Spain are coming, and there are rumours that Dr. Brian May is coming too. The telescope and its first two instruments cost €105 million: 90% of this came from Spain, 5% from Mexico, and 5% from the University…
Home, Sweet Home
Well, we made it back on Tuesday night, and I still haven’t caught my breath yet. On Sunday we took the boys to see the Garoé, the beautiful old tree which used to be sacred to the people who lived on El Hierro before the Spanish conquest. Last time I saw it in the mist. This time it was hot sun, so we could see the view, including La Palma…
The Bajada
I was determined to get up and photograph the procession leaving Isora at 7 am, so I slept really badly. But I did it, and I think the photos will be nice when I’ve had chance to correct the exposure. They only have three musical instruments: rather high-pitched flutes, castanets and big, deep drums. When I heard Herreñan music on the telly, I didn’t like it at all, because it…
The Church of San Juan, Puntallana
The exterior of the church of San Juan, Puntallana As Palmeran churches go, the church of St. John the Baptist in Puntallana isn’t all that old. The presbytery and the side chapels date from the 16th century, and the nave from the 1719. It was officially declared an Asset of Cultural Interest (rather like a listed building) in 1994. The main altar in the church of San Juan, Puntallana The…