A small rock in the Atlantic

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

Bookmark with:

"The Music of Stars"

For some time rumours have been circulating around the island's that Brian May's going to give a concert here for the inauguration of the huge, new, Spanish telescope, GranTeCan. Today, the IAC announced that Jean-Michel Jarre has visited the observatories here and at Teide, and will be playing too.

My goodness, I think it's really going to happen.

More details at http://www.alphagalileo.org/index.cfm?_rss=1&fuseaction=readrelease&releaseid=530918

Labels: Brian May, Canaries, Canary Isands, Jean-Michel Jarre, La Palma, La Plama, live music, observatory, Roque de los Muchachos, The Music of Stars

Bookmark with:

Observatory Open Days for 2008

Traditionally, the observatory has been open to visitors about 4 days per year, with perhaps 6 groups for each day. This year, they're going to have 20 open days, but most of them will only have one group. Each visit starts at 9:45 with a visit to the MAGIC gamma-ray telescope, followed by one other telescope, and finishes before 12.00.

DATE	Day	2nd telescope
8th July	Tues	WHT or INT
10th July	Thursday	Galileo
12th July	Saturday	GranTeCan
15th July	Tues	Mecator and Liverpool
17th July	Thursday	Galileo
19th July	Saturday	GranTeCan
22nd July	Tues	WHT or INT
24th July	Thursday	Mecator and Liverpool
26th July	Saturday	GranTeCan
29th July	Tues	WHT or INT
31st July	Thursday	Galileo
7th August	Thursday	Galileo
12th August	Tuesday	WHT or INT
14th August	Thursday	Galileo
15th August	Friday	GranTeCan
19th August	Tuesday	WHT or INT
21st August	Thursday	GranTeCan
22nd August	Friday	Garafía residents only
26th August	Tuesday	Mecator and Liverpool
28th August	Thursday	Mecator and Liverpool
30th August	Saturday	WHT and Galileo

Friday 15th of August and Saturday 30th August will have several groups.

Visits must be booked in advance, by calling the receptionist at the Institute of Astronomy on (00 34) 922 425703 And yes, the receptionist speaks English. Book early -- most of the places for July have gone already.

Labels: La Palma, La Plama, observatory, open days, Roque de los Muchachos, telescopes

Bookmark with:

Visiting the Observatory

GranTeCan, the huge new Spanish telescope

La Palma is home to one of the three most important astronomical observatories in the world. (The other two are Hawaii and the Atacama desert in Chile.) The observatory sits at the top of the island, at the Roque de los Muchachos.

It's a fascinating place to visit, but it's not normally open to tourists - they're too busy doing science.

You can visit the mountain top and see the buildings from the outside any day of the year. But please note:

Days only, not nights. The William Herschel Telescope could see a candle on the moon, and the MAGIC telescope is even more sensitive. They really don't like car headlights. Some years ago there was an incident some years ago where a bus shone its lights right at the Herschel's dome. Now there's a barrier across the road which is shut a little before sunset, and raised a little after dawn.

The road to the observatory is usually blocked for a few days each winter, by snow or landslides. Use your common sense. If the sign at the bottom of the mountain road says it's blocked, don't go up. I once rescued a couple of German tourists who'd spent the night in the car in the drainage ditch, after going past the sign, thinking that the weather couldn't be all that bad in the Canaries. It can. That night it was thick fog, 60 mph winds, and -5ºC. Thank God they didn't try to walk, because they'd have frozen to death for sure.

Sine the MAGIC gamma ray telescope doesn't have a building, you get quite a good view from the outside. You can get fairly close by parking on one of the helipads (the bottom left as you go up the hill). From there, a footpath goes closer, and there's a display panel that explains how the telescope works.

The observatory is open to visitors for a few days a year. This year's dates haven't been decided yet. You reserve your place on the form at http://www.iac.es/orm/visitas/novedad/visitas.htm Each visit lasts about two hours, and you get a guided tour in English or Spanish (say which when you book!) round several telescopes. Be warned that the schedule sometimes slips, and you might have to wait around.

They also hold private visits, usually for schools or visiting astronomers. You can email your request to adminorm@iac.es. Ana, who reads the email, speaks English. To be honest, they're unlikely to organise a visit for the average tourist, but if there's a visit organised anyway, you might be able to tag along. Cross your fingers!