Somebody's got to do it.

 I've been showing an international group of journalists around La Palma for the tourist board. So I took them to all the most beautiful parts of the beautiful island, and we ate in the best restaurants, and we had good conversations and I got paid for it.

But then I suppose that somebody has to do it.

On Saturday we watched the sunset from the dome of the enormous Gran Telescopio Canarias at the Roque de Los Muchachos observatory. As usual, it was spectacular to watch the sun set into the sea of clouds beneath us.

Even the people and their shadows looked amazing.

Then we went up to the Roque itself where we saw the twilight and Venus (on the right) through the Muchachos themselves.  ("Muchachos" is Spanish for "young men". With a lot of imagination the rock formation looks like a group of people.)

At Bleeding Last!

I finished the second edition of "A Breathtaking Window on the Universe" in July 2013. Almost immediately, I started work on the Spanish version. But I got interrupted by family holidays, distributing books, and writing "The Seer's Stone" and translating it into "La piedra ocular" (while local government subsidies were available.) That took longer than anticipated, as these things generally do.

Meanwhile I was tour guiding, blogging, writing the odd short story (some of them were very odd) doing an online course about moons, and sometimes even doing housework.

Family holidays came around again. Then I was I was tour guiding, blogging, writing the odd short story, learning about oral story telling, applying for governement business coaching and cleaning up after a mouse.

I sent "La Piedra ocular" off to the printers in October 2014 and re-started work on the second edition of "Una espectacular ventana al universo". Yay!

I got the coaching. Double Yay! And almost the first thing my coach said was, "You really, REALLY need to do something about sheilacrosby.com"

So I abandoned my secnd edition again, and sorted that out, quick before I had to pay for another year's hosting at http://lapalma-island.com. I planned it all out (see http://sheilacrosby.blogspot.com.es/2015/02/working-on-website.html) and got it up, and killed it before I could take a backup. (See http://sheilacrosby.blogspot.com.es/2015/03/disaster.html)

That meant that I had to pay for an extra year's hosting anyway. So I went back to the much-delayed second edition.

And tonight I finally, finally sent the changes off for professional proof correction (absolutely necessary with Spanish)

I still need to buy an ISBN and double check half the URLs, but it feels like a major (and long overdue) milestone.

I'm going to have some champagne.

This morning

I didn't feel like getting up early this morning, but I had two groups of tourists at the Roque, so needs must. And the drive up was all sparkly with dew and early sunlight.

I finished work at 1 pm, and went up to the viewpoint right at the top in hopes of meeting my friend Carmelo, the raven for a chat. He wasn't there, but another raven was (I recognise Carmelo his ankle bracelet) so I opened up the little pot of cat food I'd brought.

And the cheeky blighter flew off with the whole thing!

Bit it was worth it for the laugh.

A busy day at the Roque

Putting the Galileo's mirror onto the carrying case, which is on the lorry.

 I didn't have any guiding work yesterday, but I drove up the mountain anyway.  I wanted to get photos of people moving the main mirror from the Galileo to the Herschel telescope for realuminizing.  They only do this once every three years, so I was keen not to miss it.  That mirror weighs about 6 tonnes, and if they break it, it's much worse than even years bad luck - they'll close the telescope and everyone will be out of a job.  You'll appreciate that people were somewhat nervous, and I was careful to keep out of the way.

The Galileo's mirror arriving at the William Herschel Telescope.

And there's more.  At the same time, people were working on top of the huge dome of GranTeCan, just down the hill from the Galileo.  I stayed well back, partly because that gave a better angle for photos, but also because a nut falling from up there would be fast enough to be dangerous by the time it hit the ground.  The guys up there obviously aren't scared of heights.

People working each side of the massive GTC dome

And when all that was over, for once I was up there with old clothes and no deadline, so I finally got a close look at a monument that I've driven past for twenty years. It's well above the road, with no path to it, so I had to scramble over and around the codeso bushes for 25 minutes to reach it.  It was all a bit more intrepid than I'd bargained for.

The Union of the Earth and Cosmos from the road

It's was made by Cesar Manrique to celebrate the opening of the observatory, and it's supposed to symbolise the union of the Earth and Cosmos.  But honestly, most people find themselves thinking of something else.

Well I've been there, done that, and I don't think I'll bother again, but I'm glad I did it once.

Monument to the Union of the Earth and Cosmos up close.

Photographing telescopes at sunset

Me and the Superwasp follow-up telescope.

Last night I went up to the Roque to photograph telescopes at sunset. The time rather snuck up on me, so I left in a hurry and a bad mood, worried that I'd drive up (200 hairpin bends and about 75 minutes each way) and not get any photos after all.

As it turned out, I got arrived with about five minutes to spare. So I said "Hi," to Don, who was commissioning the Superwasp Follow-up Telescope and then got out of his hair - commissioning is a hard work, and sunset is a very busy time for astronomers. I was a bit disappointed with my photos of Superwasp itself, but I was pleased with the ones of the Liverpool and the Follow-up telescope, particularly the one at the top where I set the delay timer and put myself in the picture.

Then I went to the Automatic Transit Circle in hopes of getting one of it open - no such luck, but I couldn't resist trying to get a photo of the constellation Scorpio over the Roque itself. And while I was doing that I saw a very bright satellite over the other side of the sky, and hurriedly took this shot of the William Herschel Telescope, Cassiopeia and the satellite. The long streak is the satellite, because it moved during the 15 second exposure. I'm almost certain that it's the International Space Station, because it's so bright.

The William Herschel Telescope, Cassiopeia (the W of stars) and the International Space Station.

And finally I tried to get photos of Mercury and Venus. This was tricky, because stars and planets are too faint to see in the viewfinder of the camera - you have to take a 15-second exposure, and even then, you might not be cable to see anything until you upload it to a computer. It's rather like using rolls of film that way.

This photo of Mercury won't win any prizes, (I think the main problem was my 30-year-old tripod, rather than the camera. It certainly wasn't the sky!) But you can still see that Mercury isn't round. It goes through phases, and at the moment it's gibbous. Incidentally, the phases of Mercury and Venus are proof that Ptolemy and the Vatican were wrong, and Copernicus and Galileo were right. There's no version of the Ptolemaic system that accounts for Venus and Mercury being sometimes crescents and sometimes gibbous.

Mercury in a gibbous phase.

Zen and the Art of Astronomy

Today I showed two Buddhist monks (plus three of their friends) around the biggest telescope in the world. The senior one is the professor of Buddhist Philosophy at the University of Varanasi, in India. Unfortunately I can't remember his name since it was so exotic to me.

I did a bit of a double take when I saw that the university professor was wearing Tibetan robes, like the Dalai Lama. It's not something you often see on La Palma. If anything, the observatory dress code learns towards slightly scruffy, since quite a lot of the people there have been up all night, are living out of suitcases, and are more interested in exoplanets than fashion anyway.

Well, it didn't take long to see past the robes to the people, and to find out that they were very nice. So I showed them around and gave the talk for people who are intelligent, but don't know much science, and they were all very appreciative. And as usual with small groups, we all took photos of each other.

When we got outside, we were all thirsty. We had plenty of water but only two cups. I was just about to go back into the building in search of cups when the monks showed us how to share cups hygienically - you don't touch it with your lips. I got soaked on my first try, but it was only water on a hot day, so that was no problem. And then I got the hang of it.

When I got up this morning, I certainly wasn't expecting drinking lessons from a Buddhist monk.

R.I.P. Florian Goebel

Florien was the project manager for MAGIC II, the second of the huge Cherenkov telescopes at the Roque de los Muchachos. The telescope was due to be inaugurated next week, on the 19th. That's been delayed now, because somehow he fell from the prime focus tower in the dark last night. The tower is about ten metres (33ft) high, and Florien's dead.

I only ever had one conversation with him. He must have been very busy, but he took time out to help me with a magazine article. I always think that's the acid test of character: how you treat people who are of no possible use to you.

My husband worked for him for three weeks, fitting mirror segments to MAGIC II, and said several times how nice he was.

My sincere sympathies to his family.

Sunset on top of the world

GranTeCan (Grand Telescopio Canario / Big Canarian Telescope) at sunset.

Some six weeks ago I got permission to take sunset photos at the observatory. But one way and another, there was always something that stopped me going: I was ill, or my husband got home late, or the the air was full of Sahara dust and the sunset would be lousy. Yesterday I finally got up to the Roque at sunset. I was pretty happy with the photos I got.

I wanted to put a human being in for scale, and since I was on my own, I used the delay timer and ran into the shot.

I'm not at all fit. I'm not used to sprinting, and up at the Roque, there's only 75% of the usual oxygen.

I pulled a muscle in my rear. It hurts.

And this is NOT FUNNY!

Fainting Tourists

Wow, what a week!

I can now spout explanations of four new telescopes (although I need to work on the bit about Cherenkov radiation in Spanish) and the general talk about the observatory. It took a lot of practice, and I'm sure I must have looked quite mad, lecturing the bathroom mirror on the short history of Gamma Ray telescopes. But however ridiculous I looked, it worked. By Tuesday, I found myself regurgitating it quite confidently in front of the tourists.

I was deep in the explanation of how they observe gamma rays, given that gamma rays never make it as far as the earth's surface, when I heard a collective gasp and everyone looked away from me.

An old lady had fainted.

She was already coming around when I got there. We moved her to the recovery positioninthe shade, and I just had time to run through the checks to make sure it was a faint, not a stroke, when Romer, the assistant, arrived with the ambulance.

By then it was obvious we didn't need it. She was on her feet again, with her husband hugging her fit to bust her ribs and choking back tears. The poor man obviously thought for a second that she'd died.

She insisted that she was fine, and sorry for being such a bother. So Karl, the boss of the MAGIC, produced a chair and some water and we carried on. Then when we'd finished with the MAGIC, we persuaded her to rest in the nice, cool residencia for the second half of the visit.

We made a good team, I think.

We got up to the Liverpool and Mercator telescopes, and found engineering work going on inside the Liverpool,and the man who'd offered to take half the group very busy with higher priority things. But I wasn't going to let a little thing like that put me off after coping with the faint. I ploughed on, and remembered it all (although not quite in the best order.)

One of the visitors comments afterwards, that they enjoyed it, but it would have been even better with some photos of galaxies or seeing the telescope move.

So now we have pretty pictures organised for the next visit to the Mercator.

Most of Wednesday passed in a blur of housework. I went to see the astronomer for the Galileo telescope who does public relations, to educate myself some more. Then I took my son to the dentist. And finally, by way of relaxation, I drove right to the other side of the island to see the Fiesta del Carmen, where they take the statue of the Virgin Mary on a boat to bless the fishermen. I've been here 17 years, and it was the first time I've actually got there to see it. I was hoping it would all happen with the golden evening light, but it was dark by the time the boats left the harbour. It was still beautiful.


It was beautiful.

More Tour Guiding

Last summer and this spring, I got several mornings work as a tour guide, showing people around either the William Herschel Telescope, or the Isaac Newton Telescope.

Today was my first go at the new-style open days at the observatory (see my blog about the island) where I have to give a general talk about the observatory first, then take them to the MAGIC telescope (and maybe give the explanations if the MAGIC site manager isn't available) and finally take them to one other telescope, which could be the Galileo, the Liverpool or the Mercator. Today was the Galileo, and one of the Italian astronomers was going to give the talk there. That left me learning the general talk, and creating one about the MAGIC.

Last night I dreamed that I arrived at the residencia (the private hotel for the observatory) in good time, had a quick coffee, and suddenly I was half an hour late, and I couldn't find my car to go and meet the visitors. So I ran uphill the whole way, only to find that they were all Japanese, and expecting me to explain telescopes to them in Japanese.

Spot the anxiety dream.

And this morning went fine.

I was on time (as always). Juan Carlos, the observatory site manager, offered to give the general talk, since it's the first time, and I gratefully accepted. As it turned out, most visitors were Spanish, but six were German, so he gave the talk in Spanish, and I did it in English for the Germans. Then Karl, the MAGIC site manager, was available, so he gave a talk in German, while Juan Carlos did it in Spanish, and I listened and learned.

In fact the hardest bit was the Galileo, translating the talk into English when I could only half hear it for the background noise. Fortunately I knew more than half of it anyway, so I managed.

And then I went off to the Mercator and Liverpool telescopes to educate myself. I came home feeling that my brain had been down the gym, but it was fun.

And now you'll have to excuse me. I have to do my homework. I'll never remember all that new stuff unless I write it down in my own words.

Still busy

I feel I'm crawling out from under an avalanche of paperwork.

I've sent off my son's passport application and collected his last Primary school report - and picked up a the official application for him to start High School. Now for the last seventeen years I've had plenty of practice speaking (mostly informal) Spanish, but very little practice writing it. And these forms are formal. My son even has to fill in a legal declaration that he hasn't got a High School place elsewhere. I've got most of the associated bits together, like photos, and proof of bank transfers for insurance and the parents' association, and the form for free textbooks. We've got a doctor's appointment to fill in the form to say he's healthy enough to go to school. I could see the sense in that in the days when TB was rife, but it seems a bit OTT these days. But we have to get one, so we'll go waste the doctor's time on Monday.

We handed in our tax return. I also went along and translated for a friend signing off self-employed teaching work over the summer. And we went to hand the next issue of Ruido at the printers. Only the printer's off sick, so I have to go back on Monday. And I did a pile of updates to the Ruido website.

I've given last year's teacher a copy of all the photos and videos my son took on the school trip.

And in the middle of all that, I had a guiding job. Not take-two-groups-round-a-telescope, but stay-with-the-group-from-11am-to-4pm. The Science Museum in Las Palmas held a competition, and the prize was this trip to the Roque. So I had to stay with the group all day but only do the actual guiding around the Herschel and maybe the MAGIC.

First we went around the MAGIC telescope, then the Herschel. Half way around the Herschel, we were joined by the Vice-Consul for tourism in the Canaries, and her driver. Then we went up to the Roque itself to admire the view (photos on the blog about La Palma).

We had a rather nice lunch. Coffee was rather spoiled by a skinny American woman who kept muttering "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" like she owned the place, and generally acting like we were illegal immigrants because we were talking Spanish. In Spain. I ignored her, rather than make a scene, but I now wish I'd asked her when she bought the observatory, because I hadn't even heard it was up for sale. And then she started telling her companions that she really hoped Spain would lose the football. (They won. Yippee!) Altogether it was the worst display of bad manners that I've seen for about a year.

Then we forgot the silly woman and went up to the Swedish Solar Tower. To my alarm, the guide there didn't speak Spanish, so I had to translate, but it went OK. And we finished up with GranTeCan, which was spectacular as always.

All great fun, and presumably lucratuive, but very tiring.

Guiding again

The permanently exhausted feeling has stopped, that goodness, but today's trip was rather hard work. It was 55 adult literacy students from Tenerife, mostly in their 60s and older, and as excited as kids (which was great). Now I'm only supposed to have 25 people in a group, max, but I did the sensible thing and said two groups. But after an hour's drive, loads of them needed the toilet, and there's only one ladies' and one gents' in the telescope, so it took for-bleeding-ever. Then there was the stairs and the dodgy knees, which was pretty slow too. Then they all
started passing me their cameras to take a photo of me-and-the-telescope. I loved the enthusiasm, but that also took for-bleeding-ever. Then I had to struggle to make myself heard, although most of them were fascinated when I finally got into my spiel.

And then they all wanted their photos taken with me. Flattering, but time consuming.

And then I had to do it all again with the second group. Exhausting, but I couldn't help liking them. I take my hat off to anyone who goes back to education after retiring. And most of these people were doing it for the first time, since they never got the chance as kids. One of them had finally learned to write his own full name at the age of seventy-four!

Tour Guiding again

This morning I took a party of kids around the Herschel Telescope. It was the first time for about 6 months, so I felt rusty, but it went fairly well. It really helped that the tech staff moved the dome and telescope for us.

The bad part was that I'd forgotten how cold the wind can be up there, and I wasn't dressed for it at all.

Robert's Wall

Yesterday I had another group to show around the William Herschel Telescope. I had to drop my son off at school at 8:30, and be at the residencia for 10, which didn't quite leave enough time to make it worth going home. So instead I went straight up the mountain, and had fifteen minutes to take photos at Los Andennes, where you get a specatcular view into the Caldera.

From here you can see a dyke called La Pared de Roberto (Robert's Wall). It's about four metres high (13ft).

[Volcanic dykes are formed when moulten lava fills a crack in the rock and solidifies slowly into very hard rock called basalt. Later on the softer, surrounding rock is eroded away, leaving the harder basalt sticking out like a wall.]

The story is that Roberto was madly in love with a girl who lived the other side of the wall, and he couldn't get through. Eventually the devil appeared to him and promised to carry Roberto's body through in exchange for Roberto's soul.

Roberto was daft enough to agree.

With a great flash of light, the devil blasted a hole through the dyke and left Roberto's dead body on the far side. He'd already taken the soul.

GranTeCan

On Friday I showed another group of tourists around the William Herschel Telescope. Afterwards they were going on to GranTeCan, which is the huge telescope the Spanish are building at the Roque (see Thursday, July 26, 2007). I managed to tag along and finally see inside.

I've seen a lot of telescopes, and I knew it was huge, but I still wasn't prepared for the sheer size of the thing.

This is the dome floor, which is 32 metres (93 ft). You could fit a full sized tennis court in there, and only the corners would be outside the rotating area. The huge red thing is the bottom of the telescope, with the main mirror (10.4 m) just out of the picture to the top.

The telescope isn't finished (one reason why they allow so few visits) and they were working on the azimuth drive - the one that moves the telescope about a vertical axis. It's silent, partly because it's one, huge, linear motor.

I'd have loved to climb up inside the dome, but I was delighted to see this much.