A small rock in the Atlantic: 03/08/08

The Battle of Lepanto

Lepanto is the Italian name for the Greek port of Naupaktos, where a famous naval battle took place in 1571 in which a coalition of Christians trounced the Ottoman Empire. (Actually, there were also battles in 1499 and 1500, but since the Europeans lost to the Turks, we tend to quietly forget them.)

And for some reason they stage a re-enactment in Barlovento, every two years, as part of the fiesta.

Even better - they do it on dry land.

This sounds delightfully silly. So I've always been disappointed when I found out that I missed it yet again. Yup, in seventeen years, I've never seen it.

So I'm happy to say that it takes place tomorrow at 5pm, at the lower end of the village centre.

Labels: Barlovento, Battle of Lepanto, fiesta del Carmen, La Palma, La Plama, popular culture

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The William Herschel Telescope

The William Herschel Telescope at sunset.

The William Herschel Telescope is currently the biggest and best optical telescope in Europe (until GranTeCan opens this autumn.) The main mirror is 4.2 m across (165", or 13' 9") which astronomers call "a good light bucket". It's rather old as world-class telescopes go, since it opened in 1987, but it still produced excellent science. In fact data from the WHT has been used for about 1,500 scientific papers. It helps that it's been fitted with adaptive optics.

This is when you use some starlight to measure the air turbulence, and then deform a special, flexible mirror to compensate for that turbulence. It's rather like using glasses to correct for the shape of your eyeball, but these glasses change shape 100 times a second.

This only works if you have a bright star handy, in order to measure the turbulence in the first place. Some parts of the sky have far more stars than others, so the WHT has a laser, which can be used to create an artificial star. To the best of my knowledge, it's the only one working in Europe (although GranTeCan will have one too.)

The telescope's named after Frederick William Herschel, who was born in Germany but emigrated to England. He started life as a musician, but music lead to mathematics and then to astronomy. He's best known for discovering the planet Uranus, but he also measured the height of the mountains on the moon, discovered double stars, catalogued loads of nebulas, found two of Saturn's moons and two of Uranus's moons, and was the first to realise that the solar system is moving around the galaxy. Oh, and he discovered infra-red radiation.

Pretty impressive for someone who didn't really get started on astronomy until his mid-forties. (Obviously there's hope for me yet.)

If you want to visit the WHT, you have to sign up in advance for an open day. Details at: http://lapalmaisland.sheilacrosby.com/articles/visit_obs.php

Inside the William Herschel Telescope, beside the secondary mirror.

Labels: astronomy, La Palma, La Plama, observatory, Roque de los Muchachos, telescopes, William Herschel Telescope

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The Dragon Tree Viewpoint

dragon tree, Dracaena draco, in Puntagorda

The leaning dragon tree (Dracaena draco).

There's a rather nice viewpoint in Puntagorda, on the main road at km 78. Its most obvious attraction is the dragon tree, leaning much further over than the tower at Pisa.

Red-billed chough, Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax barbarus in Puntagorda

Red-billed chough, Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax barbarus.

But when I was last there, I was charmed by a tame red-billed chough, Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax barbarus. They're relatives of rooks and crows, but this particular sub-species only lives on La Palma where they're called grajas. They're something of an icon here, because they're so distinctive. They're also pretty intelligent for birds, and rather curious. My husband once had one pecking away at the windscreen wipers of his car.

The graja at the viewpoint came right up to me and begged for food. He even lay down and pretended to be injured, until he realised that the other family there had food, and I didn't.

Red-billedchough, Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax barbarus in Puntagorda