News

This section includes scientific and technological news from the IAC and its Observatories, as well as press releases on scientific and technological results, astronomical events, educational projects, outreach activities and institutional events.

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  • Calendario 2023
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    Astronomical calendar 2023
    The Unit of Communication and Scientific Culture (UC3) of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), with the collaboration of the Museum of Science and the Cosmos (Museums of Tenerife), has edited two astronomical wall calendars with astronomical events for the year 2023, which can be consulted and downloaded in digital format and picked up in physical form at the IAC headquarters in La Laguna. The astronomical images that illustrate them have been obtained by the astrophotographer Daniel López (El Cielo de Canarias). The Wall Calendar ( link to the document pdf) The Poster calendar (
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  • Photomontage
    The WEAVE spectrograph on the William Herschel Telescope takes its first light data at the ORM
    The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING) and the WEAVE instrument team present the first observations with this new instrument. This is a powerful latest generation multi-fibre spectrograph which, in synergy with the Gaia satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA), will be used to obtain spectra of several million stars in the disc and the halo of our Galaxy, permitting in-depth “archaeology” of the Milky Way. In addition, other galaxies, both nearby and distant, will be studied, some of them detected by the LOFAR radio telescope, in order to get to know their evolution. WEAVE, on the
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  • Press release
    The Rector of the University of La Laguna (ULL) visits the Gran Telescopio de Canarias to give an impulse to the Sustainability Plan for the telescope
    A team form the Department of Botany, Ecology, and Vegetable Physiology of the University of La Laguna (ULL) and representatives of the Gran Telescopio de Canarias (GTC) and of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) met yesterday, September 20th at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (ORM) to work together to develop a “Sustainability Plan” for the GTC. The Rector of the ULL, Rosa María Aguilar Chinea joined the meeting in order to get to know the project at first hand, and to give it an impulse. This is a new step in the commitment to sustainability for the Canary Observatories
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  • INAF and IAC representatives next to the first telescope of the ASTRI network
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    ASTRI telescopes at the Teide Observatory: an example of environmental integration
    Esta semana, la junta directiva del Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica de Italia ha visitado el Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias para ver in situ, entre otros, el avance de la instalación de la red de telescopios ASTRI. Este proyecto mejora considerablemente las capacidades actuales de captación de eventos de alta energía del universo e incluye elementos innovadores para reducir su impacto medioambiental y mejorar la eficiencia energética del observatorio. A delegation of the board of directors of the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), including its president, vice
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  • Photomontage
    The Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, meets with the scientific community at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory
    After the meeting, which was attended by representatives of various scientific institutions of reference, both regional and national, the minister and his team visited the facilities of the Gran Telescopio de Canarias and the William Herschel telescope. Last July 19, 2022, the Minister of the Presidency, Relations with the Courts and Democratic Memory, Félix Bolaños, went to the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, in the municipality of Garafía. There he held a meeting with the scientific community that carries out research in La Palma in order to better understand how this community can
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  • News report
    The OTPC: thirty years working to protect the sky
    The Technical Office for the Protection of Sky Quality (OTPC, its Spanish initials) has become a model copied by other Spanish autonomous regional communities such as Catalonia, the Balearics, Analusía, Navarre, Cantabria, Castille & Leon, and Extremadura. It has also been a reference for other places in the world, such as Chile, Hawaii, and Italy. When night falls, we often think, mistakenly, that the more artificial lighting we have the better. There is more security, a greater sense of tranquility for people in general, and the important buildings are best presented. But this insistence
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