So I finally took a group around the Roque on Friday, my first group for a year. It was a bit complicated because nobody can take groups inside telescopes due to COVID, so I had to get creative. I met them at the heliports and showed them the gamma-ray telescopes, then we went up to the Roque and hiked to the Isaac Newton, stopping at the old goat-herders cabins and…
Another week with not much progress on “Pinch Me”, but for nice reasons. I sent off another query to another agency about “Murder by Starlight”, so that’s 10 queries out there, and I feel I can afford to hold off sending more until I get a reply or two. I haven’t heard back about the big translating job, but I got a different one. I’m translating the Transvulcania website. (Transvulcania…
On Saturday I brought up my model solar system for my clients. The sun is too small. to be in scale with the planets, it ought to be 4m in diameter, but that’s rather inconvenient to fit in the car. The first four planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) are marbles and too small to see in the photograph, but the girl in the foreground is holding up the Earth….
Spartocytisus supranubius or Cytisus supranubius is the broom which grows above the clouds on the peaks of La Palma and Teide. They’re coming into flower now, and I love the touches of pink before the flowers fully open. This morning I was up at the observatory to show a group around Gran Telescopio Canarias and I took the chance to photograph the broom. Somehow this turned into yet more photos…
I can’t believe I never posted this. Back in April I was surprised to find a TV crew joining one of my groups at the observatory. This is the program – only n Spanish, but there’s some good footage of the big telescope and of the observatory. I’m not so sure about the redhead with the terrible accent, though. The gastronomy at the end is from Hacienda de Abajo. If…
Yesterday I left home at 8 am for the observatory. The first group was routine, including overrunning by 10 minutes so I only just had time to eat a banana before the next group. I’d just started the second group when a car pulled up and the driver said, “We’re the crew from Canary TV that the island council organised.” Excuse me, WHAT? One frantic phone call later, I did…