GTC

Transvulcania runners visit the Observatory

Me and Transvulcania runners outside GTC., Roque de Los Muchachos, La Palma
May 7, 2015
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  Today 11 of the Transvulcania runners visited the observatory, together with about 20 journalists. Lucky me, I got the job of being their guide. So I showed them around GTC and the MAGIC. It felt a bit odd, because the runners were interested in the telescopes, but the photographers were largely interested in the runners. Well, it’s their job, obviously: they weren’t there for me or the telescopes. But at the end,…

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Star birth

Stars being born inside the Sharpless 2-106 Nebula (S106)
October 10, 2014
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  This amazing picture of stars being born inside a nebula was taken by Daniel Lopez using Grantecan. Near the centre of the picture is a dark red spot – that’s the new star which shines mostly in the infrared. The butterfly shape is a large disk of dust and gas orbiting the star. The gas near the star shines because it is ionized (like the inside of a flourescent…

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The GTC shutter

GTC Shutter
July 30, 2014
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  GTC has been open for five years, and the massive dome shutter has been getting some maintenance. This photo give an idea of the sheer size of the dome shutter.

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Happy Birthday to Gran Telescopio Canarias

GTC at sunset, Roque de Los Muchachos, La Palma
July 25, 2012
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Gran Telescopio Canarias (Big Canarian Telescope) also known as GranTeCan or GTC was inaugurated on July 24th 2009. It’s the largest optical an infrared telescope in the world, with a segmented main mirror 10.4 m acros which gathers as much light as four million human eyes. The top of the dome is 41 m above the ground. GTC is owned 5% by the university of Mexico, 5% by the university…

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Realuminizing GTC’s tertiary mirror

The light path on a KECK telescope
June 29, 2012
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  Modern telescopes have mirrors made of a material called vitro ceramic, which keeps its size and shape in spite of changes in temperature, covered with a very thin layer of aluminium. Domestic mirrors have glass in front of the aluminium, to protect it, but that means that the light passes through the glass twice – coming and going – which degrades the image. So telescope mirrors have the aluminium…

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