The Tajogaite volcano, the new volcano on the island of La Palma, is open to restricted visits and only with guided accompaniment. This offers the possibility to get approximately 1 km closer to the cone and to see the effect of the eruption, the volcanic cone, the lava flows and how the surrounding vegetation is recovering. In addition, the guides during the visit to the Tajogaite volcano offer detailed information to help you understand the volcanism of the Canary Islands in a simple way. Reservations for visits (in English from 1st October): visits to the volcano.

Foto del Volcán Cumbre Vieja, erupción 2021.

To access the volcano you have to walk 2.5 km (5 km total) with 4 explanatory stops. The experience is unique and memorable. There is no similar experience in the whole country. It is an experience not to be missed….

Volcán Tajogaite.

The Tajogaite volcano, originally called Cumbre Vieja, is a volcano located in the municipality of El Paso on the island of La Palma, Canary Islands. It originated in the eruption that started on 19 Sept 2021, after an initial phase of 25 000 small earthquakes that hit the island for eight days. It stopped on 13 December of the same year, after 85 days of activity, being the longest historical eruption recorded on La Palma and the third longest in the Canary archipelago, and the most recent volcano in the Spanish terrestrial geography.

The volcano has a height of 1120 m above sea level, but the main cone is approximately 200 m high. Apart from this main mouth, the Tajogaite volcano complex has 6 aligned craters. The main crater has a major axis of 172 metres and a minor axis of 106 metres.

* This is how the volcano’s lava flows appear now. They have affected 10% of the island’s territory. Full Drone images of the lava flows here: https://lapalma.maps.arcgis.com/apps/StorytellingSwipe/index.html?appid=e81adc67019244f599dd5abe6c3ec9bd#

* Reportaje del National Geographic durante la erupción: https://www.nationalgeographic.com.es/naturaleza/dia-a-dia-erupcion-volcan-cumbre-vieja-palma_17551

Reservations to astronomy tours here.

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The Roque de Los Muchachos Astrophysical Observatory on La Palma island is a prestigious research centre with one of the most advanced professional telescope arrays in the world. Here is a video with spectacular images of the night sky over La Palma and of the sky at the Observatorio de La Palma at night (see note below*). In the video you can see the William Herschel Telescope, the Gran Telescopio de Canarias and other smaller telescopes.

The Roque de Los Muchachos Astrophysical Observatory offers daytime visits to its facilities (Reservations: here) but night time visits are possible during working hours.

However, do not dispair as La Palma is a Dark Sky Reserve (an Starlight Reserve) and stargazing is possible on the whole island. Here is a list and map of the astronomy viewpoints and astronomical sites of interest if you wish to stargaze. But if you need a little bit more: explanations, use of telescopes and a guided tour of the sky, you may consider joining one of our astronomy tours.

More information about the Observatory on its official website: iac.es/orm

Video by Vikas Chandler. Observatory Roque de Los Muchachos (La Palma) at night.

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If you cannot come to La Palma to see the telescope in sittu or, while the visits to the Observatory are suspended due to the covid19, you can make the visit virtually in the video (language: Spanish). The video explains what the telescope does, how it works and what the real post-covid visits will be like.

More about Science at the Gran Telescopio de Canarias can be found on the official website: http://www.gtc.iac.es/

Visits to the  Observatory at Roque de Los Muchachos will resume in 2021. Information & bookings here. More information about the Observatory on the official website of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC).

Video

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History

       
The UK’s Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) began planning the telescope in 1974 with a final budget of 10 million pounds. In 1981, 20% of the SERC negotiated a 20% stake with Holland, so the telescope belongs to the United Kingdom and the rest to the Netherlands. The first light of the telescope was on June 1, 1981 using the instrument TAURUS-2.

Results
       
The most outstanding results extracted with data obtained in this telescope are:
       
* The discovery of the first evidence of a supermassive black hole (Sgr A*) in the center of the Milky Way.
   
* The first optical observation of a gamma ray burst

Curiosities

       
* The telescope takes the name of the astronomer William Herschel (Germany 1738 – England 1822), a musician without scientific formation who began his interest in the astronomy to the 35 years of age. This astronomer discovered the planet Uranus with a 1.2m reflecting telescope that built the same along with his sister since he could not afford to buy a refractor telescope of similar size to the use at the time. Herschel was also a pioneer in the design of the azimuth mount that is now used in telescopes like the WHT. In 1981, with the first light of the telescope, was the bicentennial of the discovery of Uranus, hence the telescope bears the name of William Herschel.

* The WHT is like a Swiss Army Knife. In each focus an instrument is placed and in turn has several instruments interchangeable with each other with relative ease. Currently professional astronomers can request observation time for the following instruments:

• • ISIS – espectrograph
  • LIRIS – infrarred espectrograph
  • ACAM – ccd camera and low resolution spectroscopy
  • AF2/WYFFOS – multiobject espectroscopy
  • NAOMI/OASIS – espectroscopy
  • Adaptative optics
  • NAOMI/INGRID – infrarred imaging

More about the other telescopes at the Observatory Roque de Los Muchachos can be found on the official website of the Observatory or at Telescopio Nazionale Galileo and Gran Telescopio de Canarias.

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History

After years in the drawing boards of the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, in 1994 GRANTECAN SA when it was founded, with the aim of designing and building the world’s largest telescope: the Gran Telescopio Canarias. Subsequently, agreements were signed with the Government of Mexico, for two of their universities to participate in the project and also joined as a partner the United States, through the University of Florida. The telescope cost no less than 130 million euros and has an annual budget of nearly 9 million Euros.

The construction of the telescope at the Observatorio del Roque de Los Muchachos on the island of La Palma, began in 2000 and the start of the science phase began operating in March 2009. The telescope time is shared by Spanish scientists (90%), Mexico (5%) and the U.S. (5%), the same percentage who contributed to the initial project.

Curiosities

• We can compare the power of sight of the telescope to four million human eyes. It could distinguish the headlights of a car at about 20,000 miles away.
• The metal structure of the dome is assembled with screws 16,000 and 43,000 metal nuts.
• The mirrors are cleaned with powdered snow made of carbon dioxide. There are 6 spare mirrors.
• GTC employs about 65 people or so (about 45 on the island of La Palma alone). There are 4 working groups: maintenance, science, management and development.
• Any day between 10-20 people are working on the telescope, the rest work in offices remotely. However, at night, despite its size, the telescope requires only 2 people to run observations: an astronomer and a technician. It’s all computerized.

Results

The Gran Telescopio de Canarias studies the nature of black holes, star and galaxy formation of a very young Universe. A fairly booming field developed here is the study of distant exoplanets (Planetary Transits) and very energetic events such as: very distant supernovae & black hole collisions.

See scientific publications derived from the Gran Telescopio de Canarias data by clicking here.

More about the other telescopes at the Observatory Roque de Los Muchachos can be found on the official website of the Observatory or at Telescopio Nazionale Galileo and William Herschel Telescope.

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