Canary Islands and La Palma

The Canary Islands are located off the west coast of Africa. Although most of the islands are holiday destinations, the island of La Palma is special. A huge extinct volcano rises 2,400 metres (nearly 8,000 feet) above the Atlantic ocean, providing one of the finest sites in the world to look up at the heavens with powerful modern telescopes.

The photograph below shows the very top of the volcano with the cloud layer below the summit. You may need to use the horizontal scroll bar to see more of this glorious view. To the left of the picture you can see a group of telescopes. A group or cluster of telescopes is generally called an astronomical observatory. In this case, it is the Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory.

The picture below shows four important telescopes used by UK astronomers. These are more commonly referred to as the Isaac Newton Group of telescopes and form part of the much larger observatory, which contains around 20 telescopes in all, owned by many different nations.

The Liverpool Telescope   The William Herschel Telescope  

The Isaac Newton Telescope   The Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope

Click on the observatory you are interested in.