At the end of March this year we went to La Palma to spend a week at the Tacande Observatory, built and owned by Joan Genebriera http://www.astropalma.com/ .  The purpose of the trip was to experience astronomy at its best and, perhaps, fast track my knowledge of astrophotography. Joan has not only built the observatory himself but almost every scope, mount and nut and bolt therein, for which he also has a superb workshop.  The result is a first class astronomy set-up, with a 14″ hand made Mak as its centrepiece – what a beauty.

Joan has pursued astronomy since a boy, going on to work in the construction and maintenance of telescopes and observatories, which brought him to La Palma from Catalan 17-years ago, to help build the professional observatories at Roque de los Muchachos:

Later, as he approached retirement, he purchased a property just outside El Paso on the south side of the Caldera de Taburiente and went on to build the Tacande Observatory there:

In addition to the observatory there is a separate block containing a studio, a workshop and a very comfortable x2 bed apartment – perfectly located to crash out after a long night in the observatory – which is where we stayed. For company, day and night, Joan’s dog ‘Tuk’ is also there to keep guard:

During the week Joan provided a comprehensive course on astronomy and astrophotography, in particular, patiently dealing with our numerous questions.  The views and initial photos were spectacular but then for four nights the clouds rolled in.  Whilst this has to be seen as part of astronomy, we had hoped for better at La Palma,  However, our faith was restored during the last two nights, when we worked long into the night with perfectly clear, dark skies, collecting photo data of various galaxies and nebula –  mostly using his SBIG CCD cooled camera with stunning results.  On the final morning we were then treated to great views of the Sun using the heliograph and subsequently the 15″ Mak, wow!

Such is the quality of the Tacande Observatory and Joan’s knowledge and skills, that a French university has previously set-up a remote observatory next to the main dome, with more on their way.

Unfortunately the best pictures that were taken on the SBIG are all FITS format which, as yet, I have been unable to open – when I do they will go straight on this site.  However, working in parallel with the SBIG we also set-up a Canon 350D DSLR on the attached refractor, which was also successful in producing very good but wider angle photographs.  One such picture, showing the Sombrero Galaxy currently forms the main header for this site. Nice one Joan!