To me, sunset at Roque de Los Muchachos creates a special atmosphere which is hard to describe. Probably this is something what especially people addicted to astronomy can understand. When the sun crosses the horizon the different telescope domes open up and the first stars become visible. While many people are sitting at home in front of their TV great things happen up here – far off the world 🙂

Many different telescopes from many different nations are located up here at Roque de Los Muchachos. Here is just a subset of those I recognized so far:

• KVA Telescope
• Liverpool-Telescope (LT)
• Mercator-Telescope (MT)
• Isaac Newton Telescope (INT)
• Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope (JKT)
• SuperWASP
• Swedish Solar Telescope (SST)
• Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT)
• Dutch Open Telescope (DOT)
• William Herschel Telescope (WHT)
• Gran Telescopio CANARIAS (GTC)
• …

As far as I experienced, the northern part of the observatory is not reachable by car – at least there are some “Staff only” signs on the road. However, there is a small path which leads up to the Puente Nueva peak. If you park the car at 28°45’46.5″N 17°52’29.1″W right beside the road, walking up there takes only about 15-20 minutes. From there one has a great view on this part of the observatory!

Clear skies!