Starmus is a big festival of science and art in Tenerife, with many famous speakers like Stephen Hawking, Brian May and Neil de Grasse Tyson. On Thursday morning I met the VIP visitors from Starmus at the airport. The group included Nobel Prize winners and an astronaut! That’s when I found out that the organisers thought I was going to stay the night at the observatory. I told them two…
Yesterday I showed a group around the WHT, and I noticed that the Swedish Solar Telescope is being repainted. (Follow the link for more about the telescope.)
Yes, it’s my book. “A Breathtaking Window on the Universe: A guide to the observatory at the Roque de los Muchachos SECOND EDITION” By Sheila M. Crosby (Non-Fiction Paperback) 164 pages (16 more than the first edition) Welcome to the Roque de Los Muchachos, where 15 telescopes from 19 nations use the best night sky in Europe to explore the cosmos. Find out what it’s like to work in this strange…
From 25th September 2015 to October 9th, the island of La Palma in the Canaries will host Astrofest, a festival of astronomy, with activities for all ages and knowledge levels. There will be an international conference for astrotourism professionals, a spectacular total eclipse of the moon, an international conference for nightscape photographers, and a night photography masterclass. You can find more details and register for all these events at…
It’s not quite a done deal, but it looks as though La Palma will be getting another 20 Chrenkov telescopes. The board of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) met on the 15th and 16th of July, and decided that their two preferred sitres are La Palma and Chile (near the Paranal observatory). Negotiations will now start with the site owners, and are expected to take 6 months. Meanwhile, they’ll…
For the last few days, Venus and Jupiter have been very close together in the evening sky. I wanted to take photos on Wednesday and Thursday, but it was cloudy. I wished I’d asked to go up to the observatory, above the clouds. Lucky me, I got permission to go there on Friday evening to take photos. I’m really glad I made the effort.