On the Volcano.

As promised, some pictures from the volcano. 

At the top

Into the cloud.

Down the outside of the volcano.

Looking into the caldera!

William Herschel telescope I think.

Wind swept.

GranTeCan with a view.

More telescopes.

Coolest Cacti.

These birds live on the mountain.

Agile fliers.

Very noisy when they get together.

Sunset photos from outside my accommodation:

shadows.

New favorite photo

More cacti.

And there it goes.

The moon and GranTeCan

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. 

West Virginia

I ended up getting up earlier than I wanted Sunday morning (thanks to very thin curtains and a 5.30am dawn) and I was not happy about it. The amount of wine the night before didn't help. And my legs hurt. A lot.

After breakfast at the hotel, I started the drive to Blackwater creek falls in West Virginia. I wanted to see the falls as I have seen so many amazing photos of it. The drive was longer than I expected (~2.5 hrs) so I amused myself by singing to the radio (well iPod), often in funny voices. Because I could!

The drive all day Sunday was interesting. My GPS/SatNav had a mood on and took me some interesting routes. Lots of sharp 180 degree turns, usually after the rise of a hill to keep you on your toes. I think I scared the shell off a tortoise out on his Sunday morning constitutional. He was in the middle of the road thankfully so I managed to passed over him without harming him. (I might have been imagining the "WTF?" look on his face but I doubt it.) I saw very few cars for most of the trip which was a good job as I have no idea how 2 cars would pass on those roads. Someone would have to reverse for quite some distance.

I don't think I killed anything on the trip! :-) Bar some bugs and a few butterflies. Though it was a close called with the baby bunny. Luckily he/she ran the other way.

The weather was not as nice on Sunday. Another factor making the drive more interesting. When you can't see in front of you, no matter how fast the wipers are going, there are random detours, and in one case a jeep reversing towards me on the highway (thankfully in a detoured area so I was going slow enough), well, all in all, I was happy to get there.

Bug!

The main waterfall is at the end of a short set of stairs (though given how badly my legs hurt, they didn't feel very short at the time).

Nearly there. 

Blackwater Creek falls

View from the lowest viewing platform

Other side of the creek

I have to say it looked nothing like the photos I have seen but I think they were from creek level, which the average person can't get down too.
Of course there were lots of people taking selfies. So I thought I would give it a shot. (Don't know why I bother!)

Best Selfie attempt

The original plan was to do a few walks in the area but my legs hurt too much and the weather was not good, with frequent and heavy showers in between sun. However I did find a short 0.25 mi trail to Elakala falls and had the place to myself. Sadly the bridge goes across the top of the falls and there isn't really a good place to view it. Still it was nice to sit and relax, listening to the water.

From the bridge above Elakala falls

water

I did hike a bit around the trail and found an ok view. But the ground was soaked and it looked like they have had a lot of the woodland falling into the creek so I didn't want to go near enough to the edge to get a better photo.

Best view of Elakala falls (without risking death)

After the hike, I ended up at the park lodge, which was empty, for lunch before starting the drive back.

Last view in the park

After about an hour, I decided to break up the drive and as I was only likely to be out here this once, go to the Green Bank National Radio Observatory. Thankfully it wasn't too far out of the way. And stayed open late. They had a small display section which I wondered around until the tour started.

In Infra-red

Heat hand print

Radnom galaxy art

I wish all mirrors made me look like this!

 The tour consisted of a video and short talk. There were a couple of others which was good as I didn't have any questions to ask. Then we went to see the telescopes. They have about 8. You can only take photos outside the limits, but the bus did drive around all the telescopes. They were a lot bigger than I expected (given that it is West Virginia).

The main Green Bank Telescope

After finding my lost car keys (one of those days) and getting a very large coffee, I headed home. At this point, the GPS/SatNav decided it wanted me dead.
I couldn't convince it to take me on the interstate (a fact I only realized when I had no clue where exactly I was so at its mercy). Instead it was small country roads all the way. Which was fine. Until the County Highway. I was happy to hear the name, until I saw the road. It might have been a highway in the 1800s but little had changed since then. Think: gravel and mud road (using the name road loosely), 180 degree bends often up or down hill on 45 degree slopes, random cabins with a LOT of "no trespassing" and "Mind the guard dog" signs (I am guessing more than a few meth labs). Oh, and the occasional torrential downpour, making the road even more fun to drive. My back end slide out a few times trying to get up a 180 degree uphill bend. I would have taken photos but I was to busy trying to stay on the road.

So I was a little tense by the time I got home at 8pm. But I lived. And I did say I wanted some adventure. But it might be time to wipe the GPS and start again. (I threatened it which such and it didn't listen so I may have to follow through with the threat.)

Over the 36 hours I was away, I drove over 400 miles. Quite impressive I think for my last Virginia?US road trip! (At least for a while.) :-)