August arrived again, and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) is participating in the festival to honour our Lady the Virgin of Light in the town of Garafía (La Palma), the municipality which is the home of the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (ORM). An outreach lectura, the exhibition “100 Square Moons” and the traditional open day are some of the organized activities.

On the nights of August 12th and 13th we will be able to get maximum enjoyment of the Perseids. They will be broadcast live from the Observatory of Oukaimeden (Morrocco) on the sky-live.tv channel on the night of august 12th with the collaboration of the European project STAR4ALL, and from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC). In addition the citizen science project “Star counters” financed by the Spanish FECYT, will offer an observation proposal for the whole family.

This was stated by the acting Minister for Science, Innovation, and the Universities, Pedro Duque who chaired the annual meeting of the Governing Council of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), held today at its La Laguna headquarters. Among the other matters dealt with was the state of the negotiations about large telescopes, and the draft budget for 2020 was approved which, if implemented, will be larger for the first time than the budget of the Institute prior to the economic crisis in 2018.

The Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) is celebrating the tenth anniversary of its inauguration in the Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory. During the past decade the largest optical and infrared telescope in the world has carried out over 14,000 hours of observation and has produced scientific data in some 450 articles in the leading journals. Some of the key scientific highlights have been included in a special outreach leaflet recently published by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and the GTC.