The Japanese ambassador to Spain, Takahiro Nakamae, visited the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (ORM) in the municipality of Garafía (La Palma) last weekend, 25th and 26th March. The Japanese delegation was completed by Kensuke Katsuda, Second Secretary; Yoji Kitamura, Councillor for Economic Affairs and Akira Kusunoki, Consul of Japan in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. They were received by the director of the IAC, Rafael Rebolo, the vice-director, Casiana Muñoz and the administrator of the ORM, Juan Carlos Pérez Arencibia. The ambassador's visit began with a meeting with the president of

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 (

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

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

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