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.

A Blood Red Moon

A Blood red eclipse of the moon from Llano de la Venta viewpoint

La Palma has beautiful dark skies, so I was hoping for a really good view of last night's lunar eclipse. But looking at the low cloud along the horizon, I decided to drive up to the star party at Llano de la Venta, one of La Palma's astronomical viewpoints. In practice, an astronomical vciewpoint means parking space, level ground suitable for tripods, a signpost pointing to the pole star, and an information panel.

How far to the Pole Star?

Astrotour was offering free stargazing, courtesy of the island government. These viewpoints can be pretty cold in winter - this one is at 1,300 m - but last night it was quite balmy. The first surprise was the number of people who'd turned out. The next was the discovery that we had trees blocking the view of Mt Teide - and the moon was due to rise from behind Teide. It's a good thing I didn't have a saw with me. I'd have been very tempted, which would have been sheer vandalism, of course. So there wasn't anywhere sensible to put my tripod.



We got a splendid view of the moon, when it rose. I found I could get halfway decent photos by setting manual focus (to infinity) and jamming the camera against the Polaris signpost to hold it steady for the 1-second exposures.

One woman beside me was grumbling that she couldn't get any photos with her DSLR, and I confess I felt rather smug. Then she realised that I was getting photos with my compact, and the grumbling turned bitter.

I said mildly, "Well it's a rather good compact and I have practised." (This is an understatement. I've put in thousands of hours of photography practice.)

But she still clearly felt that having a DSLR ought to guarantee good photos, even if you didn't know how to set it to manual focus. I looked, but I couldn't see how to do it either. (I found out later that Canon camera have the manual focus on the lens, not the body)

Then the International Space Station zoomed overhead, looking gorgeous. (Every time they add more solar panels, the ISS gets brighter and brighter). You can imagine the DSLR's owner's reaction when I got a photo of that too, on my itty-bitty compact.

And to round things off nicely, Astrotour pointed their 10" telescope at Saturn, so we could all see the rings. They're as stunning as ever.

You could say it was a heavenly evening.

The International Space Station passing over Breña Baja

Be Prepared!

Last night I went to La Punta in Tijarafe, to get some photos of the fiesta. It's not a big fiesta but I've been going cross-eyed with the current translation, and I really, really needed a break in my routine. Besides, in 18 years of living on La Palma, I'd never been to La Punta.

Since the procession was going to be quite late, I made sure I had the big flash gun (affectionately known as "The Tactical Nuke") with its external battery nicely charged up. It will take standard AA batteries, but it draws a lot of power. That soon drains the batteries, so that it can take 10 seconds to recharge, which means you miss shots.

So off I went, straight after yoga. When I got there, I phoned my husband, and the mobile's battery went flat, mid-conversation. Silly me, I should have charged it. Not so hot for an ex-girl guide. I'm supposed to Be Prepared, you know?

La Punta's a pretty little place. I found the church, no bother. The mass was still going on, and the crowd spilling out onto the patio. This meant I had plenty of time to assemble camera, Tactical Nuke, and softener attachment. I tested it out on a nearby tree - all fine and dandy.

Then I turned the flash off while I took a couple photos of the mass, because that flash is very intrusive. These photos were also fine and dandy.

Then the procession started, and I took two photos with the flash.

And the camera battery died.

Well the Nuke will run off AA batteries in a pinch, but the camera won't. So I found a handy wall to stand the camera bag on, and I hunted inside it for the spare battery. And hunted. And hunted. And swore.

My mobile has a camera, but that had a flat battery too, remember?

But all was not lost. By sheer dumb luck, I still had my son's compact camera in my handbag. Just 6 Mpixels instead of 10, far less control of the tricky lighting, and an annoying lag between pressing the shutter and taking the photo, but enormously better than nothing.

I got it out, took two photos, and its batteries died too.

At which point I thanked my lucky stars that I had spare batteries in the camera bag. By then, someone was making speech, so I didn't even miss anything more while I changed the batteries over.

Then they had fireworks, and I sighed for the big camera, but I got something.

And then I got hungry, and the smell of fried pork was delicious. And I realised that I had about 27 cents on me.

Of course a hamlet that size didn't have a money machine. I had to go into Tijarafe village, ten minutes drive each way. Still, it made the sandwich all the tastier when I finally got it.

By then it was 11pm, and I had an hour's drive to get home. So I missed most of the fiesta, because they were barely warming up. But yes, it broke the routine rather nicely.

OK, for next time I will need: spare charged camera battery, flash and charged flash battery, AA batteries, spare SD card, money, charged up mobile.

And brain.

Great Photos, shame about the comments

I just discovered http://photosthatchangedtheworld.com/, which features memorable news photos. Some of them I remember seeing before. Some are very upsetting, but all are worth seeing.

I hadn't heard of Emmett Till before. As a 14-year-old he went from Chicago to visit relatives in Mississippi, and while he was there he whistled at a shop girl.

He was black. She was white. This was 1955.

Three days later, two men took him away in the middle of the night and tortured him to death. The police found them, but the jury (all white from the defendants' home town) found them not guilty, although in 1956 they confessed to a magazine.

It's a disgusting story, but the really disgusting thing is the comments. Some people haven't changed, although the percentage of people like that has.

Being proud of winning the Nobel Peace Prize, I can understand. being proud of making really good scones, I can understand. Being proud of a genetic predisposition to sunburn and skin cancer, I find very, very strange.

RTFM

Father Christmas was kind enough to bring me a new camera lens: slightly telephoto (just right for portraits), large maximum aperture (for shooting in low light, and for throwing the background out of focus), and macro capability (it'll focus so close that I can fill the frame with a postage stamp). By my standards it was a lot of money, and I've been disappointed that I've had so little time to play with it.

Without the temporary job, I'd have had plenty of time to play, but no money to buy it. Typical.

So when I went to Fuencaliente last week, to photograph the animals being blessed, I took it with me.

And it wouldn't work. Every time I tried, I got an error message "F--"

Which is about what I said. Thank goodness I had the two zoom lenses that came with the body.

The new lens wouldn't work at home either. I didn't have time to look for the manual just then, as I have to do most of the cleaning and cooking at weekends. And when I finally had time to look, I couldn't find it. I spent hours not finding it.

I began to get worried. If my shiny, new lens had broken, I had to get it back to the shop while it was still under guarantee. On the other hand, I wasn't used to it, and maybe I was doing something dumb. Definitely a time for the old software engineer's standby - RTFM: Read the Manual.

I didn't have time to look for the manual just then, as I have to do most of the cleaning and cooking at weekends. And when I finally had time to look, I couldn't find it. I spent hours not finding it.

Yesterday my husband had the brilliant idea of looking for the manual online. And this afternoon, I found it (at http://www.pentaximaging.com/files/manual/K10D_Manual.pdf
for anyone with the same problem)

And the lens is fine, thank goodness. That's the error message for when you're trying to use a silly aperture. I set to to automatic aperture, and took this photo of a Christmas tree bauble that doesn't seem to have made it back into storage yet.

Phew!

Bib

This is Bib, one of our cats.

Slightly mad

I remember in school we used to say that the first sign of madness was talking to yourself.

The second sign of madness was having white hairs on the palms of your hands.

And the third sign of madness was looking for white hairs on the palm of your hands.

Well this morning I decided that the fourth sign was very probably taking art photos of cabagges. But I took some anyway. Mad or not, I liked the light.

Up in the clouds again

I thought the guiding work had dried up, but I was asked to show the Herschel to a group of German amateur astronomers on Saturday.

To begin with, it was embarassing. They already had a guide with them who a) spoke German and b) had guided people around telescopes in Hawaii and Chile and c) had done a heck of a lot of homework on the Internet. So I welcomed people to the telescope with my smidgen of German, apologised for not speaking more, and stood around like a spare part while he reeled off chapter and verse with great enthusiasm. After a while I realised that some members of the party were more interested in my anecdotes than in numbers. So we split into two groups.

On the way down I had a great time photographing first butterflies, then the trees and clouds. It's a subject I never get tired of, as the combination gives you a chance to capture the scale of subject.