I had too many blogs. There was the La Palma blog, and the personal blog with the writing stuff, and one about astronomy and one about El Hierro. Plus there was my bookshop and my main site (or at least it used to be my main site, but it was very neglected and old-fashioned.) All this took up far too much of my time and interfered with writing. So I…
That’s no moon! Actually wait, yes it is. It’s Mimas, Saturn’s 7th biggest moon. The bit that looks like the lasar is the enormous crater Herschel (named for John Herschel, who discovered Mimas in 1789.) Mimas is 396 km in diameter, which is about half the diameter of Earth’s moon. May the 4th be with you!
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…
On Monday and Tuesday I showed a journalist around for the Tourist Board. On Monday night we went stargazing with Astrolapalma. I loved it. Agustín was very enthusiastic, and now I understand why people enjoy my enthusiasm so much. We started off just after sunset, and we had a lovely view of the old moon in the arms of the new. That’s the poetic name for when you can see…
For centuries, goatherds have brought their flocks to the Roque de los Muchachos, the highest point on the island of La Palma. As the lower pastures dried out in summer, they moved to fresh pastures on higher ground. These days, farmers can drive home for the night, but of course that wasn’t the case 50 years ago, much less 500 years ago. They came up some time in June,…
Spring is obviously here. Some people look for the swifts returning or flowers blooming, but I know it’s spring when the solar telescopes start work after their summer break. It’s not very easy to see whether the Swedish Solar Telescope is working unless you’re close, but yesterday, the Dutch Open Telescope had the clamshell dome down and they were clearly open for science. It must be time to buy…