My voice has been working much harder than usual. As well as the usual tour guiding, I gave a talk about the observatory to a group of about 60 people. My first talk with a PowerPoint presentation. It went rather well. At least I think they liked it, because they bought quite a few books. Then I had three parties: great fun, but of course rather noisy. So now I’m a…
El Borrachito
It’s all been a bit serious lately, so on Sunday night I went to see the Borrachito fiesta in Hoyo de Mazo. I got a bit more than I bargained for, but I certainly got out of my rut.
Foundations for the Large Sized Telescope
The digger’s started wotk on the foundations for the Large Size Telescope I gather the plan is to dig down 3 m, which is less than I’d thought for such a big structure. But the the MAGIC telescope is very light for its size, so perhaps the LST will be too. Cross posted to http://lapalma-island.com
Butterfly
Today I was doing my talk on the heliport, and this butterfly landed on a guest’s T shirt. I think it thought it was a flower. You can see the butterfly’s long tongue, looking for nectar.
The fire’s controlled!
The fire isn’t out, and won’t be completely out for weeks, but it’s controlled. See http://lapalma-island.com/the-fires-controlled/ But on Sunday night, I had the uncomfortable experience of shutting up a house in the fire’s path. Not my house – this was a friend who couldn’t do it for herself. So you water the garden around the house as much as possible to form a firebreak, and you wet any woodwork as…
Virga clouds
La Palma is on fire. See http://lapalma-island.com/another-forest-fire/ My house is quite safe, but not all my friends are. A lot of the south west of the island has burned, but the fire appears to be under some sort of control on most fronts. Most of it is too depressing to talk about. Anyway, as a result I learned about a new type of cloud. A virga cloud produces rain that…