GTCdigital

A week has seven days and a rainbow has seven colours; the world has seven wonders and the GTC has seven foci. Many people believe that the number seven is magical - and we agree. After all, seeing stars, planets and galaxies through a telescope is a kind of 'magic'. Read this article

As you will see, it looks like a spider with six or twelve legs (depending on how you look at it) supported by a hexagon. This hexagon is the ring, which is made up of six pairs of supports with a space in the middle for the secondary mirror and its control system. Read this article

The first images from the GTC and its OSIRIS instrument are not just scientific, they are poetic. A windmill galaxy, an Eskimo nebula, a swarm of galaxies called Corona Borealis, a supernova factory, the evocative Eyes of Markarian galaxy group... There is no doubt about it: Astronomy should be written in verse. When astronomers are observing at night they should do as the poet Saint-Pol-Roux did before he went to sleep. Put a sign on the door that says: “poet at work.” Read this article

Every year the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) hosts a Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics. For two weeks, PhD students and recently graduated Doctors of Astrophysics focus on a hot topic in astronomy with a group of eminent experts. Read this article

Now that we know what the ground at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (ORM) is made up of, we are going to take a look at how a geotechnical study is carried out, the techniques that are used and how the study for the Gran Telescopio CANARIAS (GTC) was completed at the ORM. Read this article