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.

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.

These two research centres agree to start negotiations for the installation of Cherenkov telescopes at the Teide Observatory.

76 educational centres in Tenerife have participated in the activities of this project which will continue during the next three years to train the teachers in the Island to put astronomy into their classrooms.

By virtue of this agreement, signed today at ESA’s European Centre of Space Research and Technology (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, (The Netherlands), Tenerife will become the main European Centre of Space Communications by laser.

A visit to the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory with the students of the Santo Domingo secondary school, and a public lecture about the new generation of cherenkov telescopes which will study the most energetic phenomena in the universe from this municipality in La Palma, are among the activities to be carried out on May 16th.