Observing at La Palma

I spent Monday night "observing" which turned out, thanks to the weather, to mean playing on my laptop all night. But we did get to go and have a look around some of the other telescopes beforehand. First was the William Herschel Telescope.

Outside the WHT

The primary/biggest mirror is 4.2m. The little mirror at the top is 1m across. The photos really need a little person for scale.

William Herschel telescope.

The telescope weights 79513 kg and the mounting for it weighs 186,250 kg. Not light things. And it is mounted on top of a 3 story building. I tried not looking down.

Not for those with vertigo.

You have to be careful where you go! Because the telescope rotates, there are regular gates that don't lead to anything but a long fall if you aren't careful.

gate to no where

And who said astronomy had cutting edge, state of the art technology? It might have done in the 80s. But we still use it. Waste not, want not.

Some of the equipment is very high tech

They all have a kitchen (which is very appreciated) and often a sitting area and library. This was hanging in the WHT library. They are very proud of it.

Brain May likes it here.

Super exciting reading to keep you awake all night.

Next we went to  look around the Gran Telescopio Canarias where we were observing later that night.

Gran Telescopio Canarias. (GranTeCan)

It's actually much bigger than WHT. The GTC mirror is 36 segments making up a 10.4m (410in) mirror. I only really realized the size when I found one of the segments (it was taller than me). This things is massive. The whole thing weighs 400 tonnes!

Inside

Huge!

Looking up at some of the mirrors

We took a walk up to the caldera (photos in another post) and had dinner back down at the accommodation. We also picked up our Super Snacks for the night. (Seriously, that's what they call them.) I may have over estimated a bit but I was glad I did as Dario underestimated and ended up eating some of mine. None of it was wasted or left at the end of the night.

Super Snack

I am not sure what most people think observing is like but I bet it isn't like this.

Real life of an astronomer.

We basically sit in a room where we can't even see the telescope and look at computer screens. It's a very impressive set up but when you see a movie where people actually look through the telescope, you know they have not done their homework. 

There is one screen which is very important and that tells you the weather. We want the seeing to be under one. (Seeing is basically how much a star twinkles. We want it not to twinkle! And it is caused by movement in the atmosphere, usually wind.) As you can see by the image below, 'TNG = 3.122" ' is not good! I have never actually see it above 2" before. It was very windy! 

Though the picture is cool. The stripe across the circle is the milky way. Unfortunately given the weather I couldn't face going outside to look. It was way too  cold.

Not great wether readings.

So for most of the night, we didn't do much. I got some work done before my brain gave up at 1am. And then played on my laptop to stay awake. We began at about 2am though who knows what the data will be like? Of course it cleared up at about 4.30am just when we were thinking about giving up for the night and going to (a much dreamed about) bed. So we ended up staying until 7.30am. 

One thing about the mountain is the bugs. Who seem to love being near me. Some of the ants were ... the size of some dogs. We put a euro coin (same roughly as a pound or quarter) next to it for scale. So you can truly understand my "Ewwwww!". I kept an eye on it all night (yes, it was in the control room) but thankfully it seemed asleep.

Ant, with euro coin ()

My room was very nice, but in the bathroom I found 2 cockroaches (I can't get away from them) which were promptly killed with the glass and then after observing, a very large beetle. I put the glass on it, intending on just leaving it. But I kept hearing this voice. 

"I don't understand. There is some invisible barrier. What's going on?!?! I was just walking home and Bam!"

(I was punchy and sleep deprived at this point. Just go with it.) I ended up feeling extremely guilty so I had to put it out. Which required some interesting maneuvering as the doors are very heavy and lock behind you. But I managed not to lock myself out. And passed out for a few hours.

Dog sized beetle.

On Tuesday we had to leave at about 4pm (I didn't wake up until 12.30pm), so after breakfast (or lunch depending on how you look at it), we lounged around before heading back. The drive is not for the faint hearted or those that get travel sick. (I let Dario sit in front as I have never been travel sick yet.)
The flight back was uneventful and we landed in typical La Laguna weather: cloud. I mean literally we were in a cloud that was just sitting on the mountain. Very similar to English drizzle only much more fun.