Visits to ING

A total of 2349 visitors split in 117 tours were shown round the WHT and occasionally the INT in 2005. Visitors included Dr. Jan A. C. van de Donk, the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and ESO Council member.

Conciding with the fiesta of La Bajada de la Virgen de Las Nieves, a new model for organising tours on Open Days to reduce the impact on the observatory operations was attempted. This time visitors had to book online their tours. The number of tours per day was reduced from 28 to 6 while increasing the total number of Open Days from 2 to 5.

Every year the people from Garafía, the municipality the observatory belongs to, are invited to visit the observatory and get together with the observatory staff for a barbecue. On 19th August another Garafía Open Day took place and 90 Garafians visited the WHT.

The participants to the astronomy course “Taller aplicado de investigación y observación astronómica en La Palma”, organised by La Laguna University and the Spanish Distance Learning University (UNED), and with the collaboration of ING among others, and to the European Science and Technology Week (see accompanying photos by Luis Cuesta, IAC), also had the opportunity of visiting the WHT. Both visits received the financial support of OPTICON Public Outreach. ¤