Mike Simmons, director of Astronomers without borders will also receive the "Gabrielle and Camille Flammarion Prize". The ceremony will take place tomorrow Friday 11th December in the Council Chamber of the Paris Observatory.

A telescope is an optical system which collects a lot of light and allows us to “see” objects as if they were much nearer. An astronomical instrument is a very precise tool which analyzes the light, and without this the telescope cannot carry out high level science. For this reason OSIRIS, CanariCam, EMIR, FRIDA and MIRADAS were guests of honor at the “Science with the GTC” conference celebrated in Puebla (Mexico). These are the instruments which are operative, or will be operative on the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC)

The specialized Journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters (ApJL) is publishing today, in its on-line version, a study led by the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canaries (IAC) in which the researchers have identified a type of giant stars (AGB which means Asymptotic Giant Branch) of the second generation, and rich in aluminium, in four globular clusters with a range of metallicities and ages in the Milky Way. The detection of these stars on the giant branch of the well known Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram is what is expected according to theoretical models of stellar evolution, and

The first day of the conference “Science with the GTC” which is held in Puebla (Mexico) was focused on the scientific results obtained with OSIRIS, an optical instrument for imaging and spectroscopy. On the second day CanariCam, a camera-spectrograph-polarimeter in the middle infrared competed for attention. The two instruments are attached to the Gran Telescopio CANARIAS (GTC). The GTC works at optical and infrared wavelengths, and is sited in the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (ORM) on the Island of La Palma (Canary Islands).

Astrophysics has been the main theme of the first day of the conference "Science with the GTC", that is held in Puebla (México). This is a multidisciplinary meeting: from exoplanets to asteroids, from black holes to gamma ray bursters, via supernovae and brown dwarfs. All these subjects, and many others, have been discussed during the twenty six presentations which took place today.

It will be held from 2nd to 4th December in Puebla (Mexico) and will cover the scientific results obtained with the telescope as well as the present and future of the instruments OSIRIS, CanariCam and Emir