Observatory · 1,180 m
Two hundred and sixty clear nights
A 60 cm reflector on a ridge above the cloud, and an astronomer who will knock on your door at two in the morning if it is worth it.
“I came for two weeks in 2016 to test a site”
“I was working for the institute on La Palma and the seeing here kept coming back better than it had any right to. There is nothing above us and nothing lit below us, and the inversion sits at about nine hundred metres for two-thirds of the year, so we are usually looking through the dry air and not the wet.
The dome went up in 2018 with money from Marta and a great deal of arguing with the island council about the road. It is not a research instrument. It is a very good sixty centimetres of mirror pointed at things people have only ever seen photographs of.”
Rafael Quintero · Astronomer
- Telescope
- 600 mm f/4.5 Newtonian, 2018
- Mount
- Equatorial fork, absolute encoders
- Dome
- 6 m, hand-cranked when the motor sulks
- Eyepieces
- 31, 17, 9 and 5 mm
- Altitude
- 1,180 m
- Clear nights
- About 260 a year
- Seeing, median
- 0.9″
- Included
- One night per stay
The moon
This month, night by night
—
The dark weeks are the two either side of new moon; that is when Rafael opens every night the sky allows. A full moon is not a wasted night — at 600 mm it is unbearable and unforgettable at the same time, and there is a filter for it.
Phases are computed for Canary time from the mean synodic month, so they are good to within a few hours.
Nights
When the shutter opens
Weather permitting
| Season | Nights | Start | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| April — November | Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday | 21:30 | Two and a half hours |
| December — March | Thursday, Saturday | 20:00 | Two hours |
| New moon week | Every night | 21:00 | As long as it holds |
| Full moon week | Thursday only | 21:30 | The moon, and only the moon |
The year
What you will actually be shown
Four seasons
Winter
December to FebruaryOrion, and the whole of it. The Great Nebula at 60 cm on a still night is the thing people remember from the entire holiday. Sirius sits high enough here to stop twinkling.
Spring
March to MayGalaxy season. Virgo and Coma at midnight, the Sombrero, and Markarian’s Chain if the seeing holds. The zodiacal light stands up out of the west in March.
Summer
June to AugustThe centre of the Galaxy, forty degrees up — higher than anywhere in mainland Europe. Sagittarius, the Lagoon, and the Perseids in the second week of August.
Autumn
September to NovemberAndromeda overhead, Uranus at opposition most years, and the best transparency of the year in late October when the calima has gone and the rain has not started.