Starry Skies over La Palma

The Roque at night by Manel Soria
The Roque at night by Manel Soria
The Roque de Los Muchachos at night with star trails
The Roque de Los Muchachos at night by Manel Soria

Manel Soria, who gave a talk on night photography at FotoNature 2012 now has amazing photos of La Palma on his website at www.frikosal.net
The photo above was taken in the observatory, looking north. From left to right you can see the empty dome of the Swedish 60 cm telescope, MAGIC II (on the horizon, some distance below), the Superwasp Follow-up Telescope (closer), the Liverpool telescope (peeking from behind the ridge), the Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope (at the back) and SuperWASP below the JKT.

The photo below looks south over the Caldera to the southern sky. Because La Palma is closer to the equator, we get to see some stars in the southern hemisphere, which you never see from Britain. This photo includes Alpha Centauri which is the next nearest star after our own sun. You can also see two stars of the southern cross, just peeking over the ridge: Mimosa and Gamma Crucis.

Both these photos are reproduced with written permission from the photographer. For any other use, please contact him at frikosal [AT] gmail[DOT]com.

Stars over Los Llanos from the Roque
Stars over Los Llanos from the Roque by Manel Soria

 

Posted by sheila

Sheila came to La Palma with a six month contract and has stayed 24 years so far. She used to work as a software engineer at the observatory, but now she's a writer and Starlight guide.

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