I’ve been wondering how many people they thought they could get up at the Roque, given the need for things like parking and toilets. According to Canarias 7 (in Spanish) the answer is “perhaps 2,000”. The idea is to transmit the concert to huge, open-air screens in each of the Canary Islands, and also in Madrid and London, and maybe Paris and Brussels. Jean-Michel Jarre and Brian May are said…
Fitting another mirror segment to MAGIC II The MAGIC gamma ray telescope is getting a twin. MAGIC II will work together with MAGIC 1 as a two-telescope array. The first thing you notice about MAGIC is that it’s huge. The mirror is 17 m (55ft) across. This is because Gamma rays never reach the earth (unless they come from an atomic bomb). What the telescope is looking for is something…
The first church on this site was built in the 16th century, when this was the centre of the village. Since then, the population moved uphill, leaving the church rather isolated, and the church has been rebuilt twice (the current building dates from the 19th century), and finally fell into disuse and ruin. It was replaced with a newer one, in the new centre of the village, in 1951, but…
A romería is a cross between a religious procession and a party. Typically, they hold a special mass and then take the statue out for several kilometres along a traditional route, followed by floats which hand out free food and wine, and lots of people, some in traditional dress, many of them singing and / or dancing. Since it’s a big event, most of them don’t happen every year. Saturday…
Wow, what a week! I can now spout explanations of four new telescopes (although I need to work on the bit about Cherenkov radiation in Spanish) and the general talk about the observatory. It took a lot of practice, and I’m sure I must have looked quite mad, lecturing the bathroom mirror on the short history of Gamma Ray telescopes. But however ridiculous I looked, it worked. By Tuesday, I…
Wednesday was the Fiesta del Carmen, which is celebrated in Santa Cruz and Puerto Tazacorte. They have a special mass, and then they take the statue of the Virgin of Carmen out for a procession. So far, so much like most fiestas on the island. Only in this case, they take the statue of the virgin out on a boat parade, to bless the fishermen.These photos are fromPuerto Tazacorte. The…