This is the first of a huge database of images I have to process from the Starmus week – they shall be appearing in no particular order, and this will take weeks, especially when I take all day to mow the lawn which had gone haywire in my week away. This is the Themis 90cm solar telescope (French/Italian) on the Teide Observatories site on Tenerife. We were well above the cloud base at over 2,000 metres and it was like I’d died and gone to heaven. For me an observatory is not something to keep the weather off your telescope – it is a Temple for the Gods, an eye to the Universe – and I was surrounded by some of the best telescopes in regular use – it was fantastic.
