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…
Looking east towards Tenerife. The highest point of the island is the Roque de Los Muchachos, at 2,426m (8,000 ft) above sea level. Most days of the year, the view is spectacular. Even when it’s raining at sea-level, the summit is nearly always above the clouds. In fact, you can often look down on a sea of clouds surrounding the island. Of course that’s one reason why the observatory…
Francesco Pepe invited me to see inside the HARPS spectrograph. I was very lucky, because the enclosure was closed for the inauguration, and closed again (probably for years) soon after I took these photos. Of course I had to wear special over-clothes to prevent dust getting into the instrument. The top photo shows the grating, which splits the starlight into a rainbow, and the bottom one shows the collimator,…
On Saturday, crazy people will be running an ultramarathon around La Palma. It’s the famous Transvulcania. The main race starts at 6 am down at the lighthouse at the southern tip of the island. The runners will race up the central spine of the island to the picnic site at El Pilar, then Punta de Los Roques. The race continues anticlockwise around the Caldera rim, climbing up to the observatory…
Today they inaugurated the annex building to the Liverpool telescope. The Liverpool is the joint largest robotic telescope in the world, with a 2 m mirror. Since there’s nobody at the telescope at night, it was built with very little in the way of workshops. But the new building contains a workshop to assemble and test new instruments, and a control room, to help humans commission them. Of course…
On Sunday, Alan Gandy successfully completed his Seven-Islands Walk. (If you’re impressed, you can donate here.) Tuesday May 1st is a public holiday. Most shops will be closed. If you’re self catering, it might be an idea to stock up a bit today. Thursday May 3rd is a local holiday in Santa Cruz de La Palma, Breña Alta, Breña Baja and Mazo. It’s Fiesta de la Cruz, and the roadside…