La Palma Diary - Day Four

Back in my room after another night amongst the telescopes.

This evening I was mainly at the Isaac Newton Telescope (above), hoping to make a quick observation during one of its rare "service nights".

But the schedule was packed and it was not to be.

However it was fantastic to see the telescope in such detail.

And before sunset, my gracious host Javier Mendez had operated the machinery so I could film its movements.

Javier also showed me through the archives, including a fascinating collection of star surveys on old-fashioned "plates" (right).

I greedily filmed plenty of material for future films on Deep Sky Videos.

Then we walked around the mountain-top and shot a few timelapse sequences.

And while the camera never does it justice, I took a few nice photos.

Especially like this one (below) of Javier at the historic ruins of La Palma's first telescope.

And I love this one (below) of the moon-lit JKT telescope with the constellation Orion.

Despite the spectacular clouds below us, it was certainly the clearest night on the volcano since I arrived.

After faffing around with my own photos, I once again joined student astronomer Liam Hardy for more observations of Messier objects.

He'd imaged a few nice ones for us, including a couple of spiral galaxies.

It all starts again tomorrow. I'd better sleep.

Roque de los Muchachos Observatory is run by The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. I am being hosted by the Isaac Newton Group of telescopes. The videos from this trip will appear on Deep Sky Videos: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

Click here for diary day one.
Click here for diary day two.
Click here for diary day three.
Click here for diary day four.
Click here for diary day five.
Click here for diary day six.
Click here for diary day seven.
Click here for diary day eight.