astroGC

Since mid March, the Canary Islands have been under a very strict lockdown imposed by the Spanish government. The virus was spreading at very high speed in Madrid, Basque country and Catalonia. The central government implemented in whole Spain (including the Canary Islands) one of the strongest lockdown in the world, similar to the one implemented in Wuhan. In the last few weeks most of Spain is recovering very slowly a kind of "new normality". astroGC, as a company up in the Outdoor Activity oficial database is allowed to run excursions in the mountains at any time of the day or night from "phase I" lockdown. astroGC van at Mirador del Mulato viewpoint during phase I lockdown. But there are no tourists in Gran Canaria right now. Absolute zero. There are some travellers who decided to stay here. They had to leave their hotels to rent an apartment with kitchen to be able to cook. They are somehow some new residents. This is the case of David and John (fictitious name

This is another very good shot of the moon we took yesterday. The picture has been taken with J. D. (a guest) Samsung mobile phone during our astronomy workshop. Between the moon and J.D.'s mobile phone: our  handmade 16'' telescope. Thanks

This is a time lapse of the moon rising up the mountains in Gran Canaria island yesterday. It has been done with our handmade 16'' telescope equipped with a 38 mm x 70º eyepiece and the Samsung mobile phone of one of the guests. With this eyepiece, the telescope was magnifying the moon 47 times. The speed of the moon rising up has been multiplied by a factor of 20. Enjoy and share with no fear. Thanks.

We were happy to welcome Phil and Sue to the astroGC astronomy workshop t he day before yesterday. With their agreement I publish the photo we took of them at the end of the workshop. We only had to face some problems due to the moon light disturbing the deep sky observation. The rest was just fine.

This is a time lapse video of stars apparently rotating around Polaris star. Polaris, also called the North star, is quite low in the sky due to the video has been done from Gran Canaria at 28 degrees lattitude. This time lapse has been done by Andrew Lockyer during his holidays in Gran Canarias. Andew is deeply concerned about the understanding of the place where mankind is living. He came to the astroGC astronomy workshop during his holidays and also took this video from his resort in South Gran Canaria. Thank you for sharing Andrew, and thank you for participating actively in our astronomy workshop. Gauthier.

Lastly we had winds from the East in the Canary islands. The East winds bring dust from Sahara desert. This is named "Calima" is Spanish. For some reasons (we do not know) the atmosphere is particularly quiet when loaded with Sahara dust. There are very few turbulences and we still have sharp images despite of magnifying 225 times. One this picture, we used our handmade 16'' telescope (1.80m focal length) along with Ethos 8 mm X 100º eyepiece and a decent mobile phone . Enjoy and share with no fear.