Dear friends,
Welcome to Astro nights! Finally, the Universe has become closer!
This is a short preview of what we are planning to show you during two nights
for a couple of hours each, a program optionally included in all our tour packages.
Amateur astronomers, sympathizers of the starry night or novices, all of
you are invited to join us in an exciting journey through the stars of
the Milky Way, constellations, Moon, planets, nebulae, distant galaxies and
globular clusters... All these will be revealed to you by our passionate
astronomers, assisted by powerful telescopes and eager to share with you
their knowledge and experience... Two astronomical observatories will be
optionally visited during your visit in La Palma.
Hight above the island, at 2300m altitude at the margin of the huge Caldera of
Taburiente, Roque de los Muchachos Observatory is one of best world complex of
professional observatories, comparable with the ones in Hawaii or Chile. Up there,
about one hundred institutions from 20 countries mostly European own telescopes
and installations to observe the stars and do scientific observations. These
institutions are funded with public money, so this site is open to visit for the
public. To see a few telescopes, we just have to book in advance your group. The
observatory Roque de los Muchachos does not charge any fee for this visit.
Haunted by our routine hard work, spending hours in traffic rushing daily from
home to the office, blinded night after night by lights and thousands of advertisments
of our modern cities, and worrying about our bank debits... We simply forgot from where
we are really coming and where we'll be going in our amazing Universe! Throughout our
voyage, we propose you to return for a moment to the real beauty of pure starlight!
Somewhere in the Universe, on our home planet, on a remote island, we are inviting you
to join us under the dark skies of La Palma to admire the heavens...
There, you will have a chance to return to our beginning and wonder about our ending,
life and matter, in a perpetual transformation...
These objects observed are known as "deep sky objects". As their name suggest, these can
be seen only in dark sky conditions, and La Palma skies satisfy this requirement, thanks
to a strict law which prevent artificial light pollution, as the attached map showing
La Palma proves, compared with most of
Europe and
North America for example.
Some of the questions our astronomers will be pleased to answer you:
What are these shooting stars?
Why are so many craters on the Moon?
How could you distinguish a star from a planet?
There is life out there?
How about aliens, did they come here?
Where are the names of stars coming from?
What are the black holes and why nothing can escape them?
Why are the stars shining in different colors?
Will an asteroid going to hit the Earth in the near future?
How about astrology, what's its relation with astronomy?
What should you expect to observe there? Some of the following objects and phenomena:
Craters on the Moon and eclipses...
Some of the major planets of our Solar System, Saturn's rings, Venus' phases, Jupiter's satellites...
The Milky Way, our Galaxy home, of which our Sun is only one of its 200 billion stars...
Stars of various colors, binary stellar systems...
Asteroids of different sizes, peaceful or possible dangerous to our planet...
Galaxies, distant islands of Universe, closer or farther...
Globular clusters, giant associations counting hundreds of thousand stars...
Planetary nebulae, remaining of giant explosions of stars at their lifetime ending...
Comets, mostly unexpected guests of the inner Solar System...
Conjuctions...
Other astronomical and atmospheric phenomena.
Beside admiring stars, the astronomy is a great tool for education of sciences: mathematics, physics,
chemistry, biology, geology, etc. In case of cloudy weather, we will offer you a show to cover all these
topics in images, movies, computer animations and a planetarium software.
Why are these people so keen in spending their nights under the sky? How could you
acquire similar achievements? You will get all these answers attending our astro nights.
After the observations or presentation you will be lead back to your guesthouse, so
we wish you there "Good Night and Stary Dreams!" which will prepare you for another full
day of adventure in your tour. Travel with us and the Universe becomes closer!