New Forest Observatory ®

Yes that really is Neil Armstrong – the first man on the Moon – and he was at the Starmus Festival speaking!

The Starmus Festival was created by Garik Israelian who managed to attract an amazing lineup of World Famous celebrities to the event – how he managed this I will never know.  Over the days/weeks I will put images of this star-studded cast up here on the New Forest Observatory web site so that you can see what you missed by not attending this most amazing event.

On the evening of the final day there was a two and a half hour concert by Tangerine Dream with Brian May making a guest appearance at the beginning and the end of the concert.  Definitely the most enjoyable music event I have ever attended (and I’ve been to quite a few in my time) 🙂

More observatory heaven on the Teide Observatories site.

A panoramic view of some Observatories taken at the Teide site.

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.

Just got back from 8 days on Tenerife attending the Starmus Festival – what an experience!!  I will relate all the happenings over the next few weeks on this site – but here’s something to whet your appetites 🙂

Apart from Neil Armstrong and a number of Apollo astronauts attending – and Alexei Leonov and a number of Russian cosmonauts – there was a 2 and a half hour Tangerine Dream concert with a guest appearance by Brian May – possibly the most mega music event I have witnessed.  I will bring you a blow by blow account with pictures exclusively on the New Forest Observatory web site 🙂