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Announcement
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2024B
16 February 2024    WHT

Job Vacancy
JOB VACANCY: HEAD OF OPERATIONS
5 February 2024    WHT+INT

Job Vacancy
JOB VACANCY: AUTOMATIC SYSTEMS, MEASUREMENT AND CONTROL ENGINEER/TECHNICIAN
1 February 2024    WHT+INT

Announcement
STUDENTSHIP PROGRAMME AT THE ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES
30 January 2024    WHT+INT
We welcome applications for five places on the ING studentship programme 2024/25. The deadline for applications is Friday 15th March 2024, 24:00 WET

Announcement
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE CCI'S INTERNATIONAL TIME PROGRAMME ON THE CANARY ISLANDS
18 December 2023    WHT (WEAVE)
Call for Proposals to the CCIs International Time Programme on the Canary Islands. More information: https://www.iac.es/system/files/documents/2023-12/CCI_ITP2024-2025_Call%20For%20Proposals_0.pdf

Season greeting
MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES
18 December 2023
The staff of the Isaac Newton Group wish you Happy Christmas and New Year!

External release
ASTRONOMERS SPOT GIANT STREAM OF STARS BETWEEN GALAXIES
30 November 2023    WHT (PF-QHY)
To their surprise, an international team of researchers has discovered a giant and extremely faint stream of stars between galaxies. Streams were already known in our own galaxy and in nearby galaxies, but this is the first time that a stream runs between galaxies. It is the largest stream detected to date. The astronomers publish their findings in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

External release
A HUGE STREAM OF STARS IS DISCOVERED IN THE COMA CLUSTER
30 November 2023    WHT (PF-QHY)
An international team of scientists, with participation by researchers at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC), has discovered a very large, but thin, stream of stars in the Coma cluster of galaxies. This is the largest stream of stars detected until now, and the first to be found in a cluster of galaxies. This finding, which is published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, was made using observations taken with the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (Garafia, La Palma, Canary Islands).

Scientific news
A GIANT THIN STELLAR STREAM IN THE COMA GALAXY CLUSTER
30 November 2023    WHT (PF-QHY)
Astronomers have discovered an extremely large and faint stream of stars in the Coma galaxy cluster. This is the largest stellar stream detected to date and the first of its kind found in a galaxy cluster. This discovery, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, has been possible thanks to observations made using the William Herschel Telescope (WHT).

External release
WILLIAM HERSCHEL TELESCOPE INAUGURATES ITS NEW WEAVE SPECTROGRAPH
IAC
31 October 2023    WHT (WEAVE)
Yesterday, 30 October 2023, from the telescope itself at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma, the WEAVE instrument, a powerful state-of-the-art multi-fibre spectrograph, was publicly unveiled.

Official event
INAUGURATION OF WEAVE
31 October 2023    WHT (WEAVE)
The WEAVE spectrograph, a powerful, next-generation multi-fibre spectrograph installed on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (La Palma, Canary Islands), was inaugurated on October 30th, 2023.

Scientific news
ASTEROID 2023 DZ2, DISCOVERED USING THE INT AND HEADED FOR EARTH, WILL NOT IMPACT
30 August 2023    INT (WFC)
Asteroid 2023 DZ2, discovered using the Isaac Newton Telescope, will not collide with Earth, even though their orbits intersect. The results of a detailed analysis reveal the orbit of 2023 DZ2 is synchronised with that of Jupiter, reducing the probability of a collision in the coming decades.

Announcement
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2024A
16 August 2023    WHT+INT

Announcement
INT SCHEDULE AND TIME ALLOCATIONS 2023B RELEASED
8 August 2023    INT

Visit event
TRAINING OBSERVING RUN OF A GROUP OF STUDENTS FROM INNSBRUCK UNIVERSITY, AUSTRIA
20 July 2023    INT (IDS)
Training observing run on the INT of a group of students from Innsbruck University, Austria

Announcement
JOB VACANCY: OBSERVING SUPPORT ASSISTANT
10 July 2023    WHT
Observing Support Assistant. Closing date: 2nd August 2023.

Scientific news
THE SPECIFIC ANGULAR MOMENTUM OF EARLY-TYPE GALAXIES UNVEILED BY THE EXTENDED PLANETARY NEBULA SPECTROGRAPH SURVEY
4 July 2023    WHT (PN.S)
Astronomers using data from the extended Planetary Nebula Spectrograph (ePN.S) early-type galaxy survey find that galaxies that are efficient in forming stars, like discs, are also efficient in retaining angular momentum. In early-type galaxies (ETGs), it is not so: there is a strong dependence as a function of total stellar mass, with the most massive galaxies being least efficient in forming stars and in retaining the angular momentum.

Scientific news
THE SHORTEST-PERIOD BINARY STAR SYSTEM KNOWN IN THE GALAXY IS RESISTING INSPIRAL
27 June 2023    WHT+INT (IDS, ULTRACAM)
A study led by James Munday (PhD student at the University of Warwick and support astronomer in the ING Studentship Programme 2022/2023) has recently been published that exploits optical photometry of HM Cancri, spanning more than 20 years. This long time-baseline has led to the determination of an incredibly precise orbital decay constraint for the system by timing the phasing of an optical modulation, which would not have been possible without the Isaac Newton Telescope, and the William Herschel Telescope.

Announcement;Official event
WEAVE INAUGURATION - 30 OCTOBER 2023. FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT
2 May 2023    WHT (WEAVE)
An inauguration event. WEAVE - A New Generation Multi-Object Spectrograph on the William Herschel Telescope. 30 October 2023, Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain. Bringing together the WEAVE community to celebrate the start of the scientific exploitation of WEAVE.

External release
RESUELVEN EL MISTERIO DE COMO SE ENCIENDEN LOS CUASARES
IAC
26 April 2023    WHT+INT (PF-QHY, WFC)
Un equipo cientifico internacional, en el que participan las investigadoras del Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) Cristina Ramos Almeida, Patricia Bessiere y Giovanna Speranza, ha descubierto que los cuasares, uno de los objetos mas brillantes y energeticos del Universo, se encienden principalmente por fusiones entre galaxias.

Scientific news
FIRST ON-SKY DEMONSTRATION OF TOMOGRAPHIC SCINTILLATION CORRECTION
6 March 2023    INT (SCIDAR)
An experiment was designed to demonstrate the tomographic scintillation correction technique using the Isaac Newton Telescope. The proof of concept experiment used a single wavefront sensor and a SCIDAR turbulence profiler. A reflecting prism was used to alternate between the SCIDAR measurements and WFS data measurements.

Announcement
STUDENTSHIP PROGRAMME AT THE ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES
23 February 2023    INT
We welcome applications for five places on the ING studentship programme 2023/24. The deadline for applications is Wednesday 15th March 2023, 24:00 WET. Details of the programme can be found on: https://www.ing.iac.es/astronomy/science/studentship.html

Announcement
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2023B
17 February 2023    WHT+INT

Announcement
INT SCHEDULE AND TIME ALLOCATIONS 2023A RELEASED
29 December 2022    INT
INT schedule and time allocations for semester 2023A are available online at http://c.ing.iac.es/schedules/?alloc

Announcement
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE CCI'S INTERNATIONAL TIME PROGRAMME ON THE CANARY ISLANDS 2023-2024
29 December 2022    WHT+INT
The International Scientific Committee (CCI) of the Roque de los Muchachos (ORM, La Palma) and Teide (OT, Tenerife) observatories invites applications for International Time Programmes (ITP) on telescopes installed at these Observatories. Deadline is midnight, 28th February 2023.

External release
EL ESPECTROGRAFO ASTRONOMICO DE ULTIMA GENERACION WEAVE ARROJA SU PRIMERA LUZ
22 December 2022    WHT (WEAVE)

Season greeting
MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES
20 December 2022
The staff of the Isaac Newton Group wish you Happy Christmas and all the best for 2023.

External release
THE WEAVE SPECTROGRAPH ON THE WILLIAM HERSCHEL TELESCOPE TAKES ITS FIRST LIGHT DATA AT THE ORM
19 December 2022    WHT (WEAVE)
The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING) and the WEAVE instrument team present the first observations with this new instrument. This is a powerful latest generation multi-fibre spectrograph which, in synergy with the Gaia satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA), will be used to obtain spectra of several million stars in the disc and the halo of our Galaxy, permitting in-depth archaeology of the Milky Way. In addition, other galaxies, both nearby and distant, will be studied, some of them detected by the LOFAR radio telescope, in order to get to know their evolution.

External release
EL ESPECTROGRAFO WEAVE COMIENZA EL ESTUDIO DE LA FORMACION Y LA EVOLUCION DE LAS GALAXIAS
Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya press release
14 December 2022    WHT (WEAVE)

External release
NEW INSTRUMENT ANALYSES THE HEART OF A GALAXY GROUP
Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam press release
13 December 2022    WHT (WEAVE)

External release
PRIMERA LUZ DEL INSTRUMENTO WEAVE
IAA press release
13 December 2022    WHT (WEAVE)

External release
WEAVE - THE UK-LED SKY SCANNER REVEALING GALACTIC FINGERPRINTS
STFC video release
12 December 2022    WHT (WEAVE)
WEAVE, a robotic sky scanner in La Palma, has looked 280 million light years away to reveal the spectra of a pair of galaxies. PI Gavin Dalton from the University of Oxford and STFCs RAL Space explains more about this instrument and how it came to be. Find out more here: https://www.ukri.org/news/uk-led-robotic-sky-scanner-reveals-its-first-galactic-fingerprint/

External release
PRIMERA LUZ DEL INSTRUMENTO WEAVE
IAA video release
12 December 2022    WHT (WEAVE)

External release
UK-LED ROBOTIC SKY SCANNER REVEALS ITS FIRST GALACTIC FINGERPRINT
UKRI press release
12 December 2022    WHT (WEAVE)

External release
WEAVE MAKES FIRST ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS
NWO press release
12 December 2022    WHT (WEAVE)

External release
WEAVE FIRST LIGHT: A NEW WINDOW INTO THE UNIVERSE
CAB press release
12 December 2022    WHT (WEAVE)

External release
PREMIERE LUMIERE POUR WEAVE, SPECTROGRAPHE DE DERNIERE GENERATION
CNRS press release
12 December 2022    WHT (WEAVE)

External release
A MAJOR TELESCOPE UPGRADE HAS PEERED THROUGH TO THE DISTANT UNIVERSE TO REVEAL THE SPECTRA OF A PAIR OF GALAXIES 280 MILLION LIGHT YEARS AWAY FROM EARTH
Univesity of Cambridge press release
12 December 2022    WHT (WEAVE)

External release
NOTTINGHAM ASTRONOMERS WELCOME FIRST LIGHT FROM WEAVE
University of Nottingham press release
12 December 2022    WHT (WEAVE)

External release
WEAVE SPECTROGRAPH BEGINS STUDY OF GALAXY FORMATION AND EVOLUTION
ICCUB press release
12 December 2022    WHT (WEAVE)

External release
PRIMA LUCE PER WEAVE: IL QUINTETTO DI STEPHAN
INAF press release
12 December 2022    WHT (WEAVE)

External release
PRIMERA LUZ DEL INSTRUMENTO WEAVE EN EL QUE PARTICIPA EL INAOE
INAOE press release
12 December 2022    WHT (WEAVE)

External release
NEW SPECTROGRAPH'S FIRST LIGHT PROMISES INSIGHTS INTO GALACTIC ARCHAEOLOGY, ORIGIN OF CHEMICAL ELEMENTS
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy press release
12 December 2022    WHT (WEAVE)

External release
NEW INSTRUMENT ANALYSES THE HEART OF A GALAXY GROUP
Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam press release
12 December 2022    WHT (WEAVE)

External release
PREMIERE LUMIERE POUR WEAVE, SPECTROGRAPHE DERNIERE GENERATION
Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg press release
12 December 2022    WHT (WEAVE)

External release
WEAVE SPECTROGRAPH BEGINS STUDY OF GALAXY FORMATION AND EVOLUTION
Universitat de Barcelona press release
12 December 2022    WHT (WEAVE)

Press release
WEAVE FIRST LIGHT
12 December 2022    WHT (WEAVE)
The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING) and the WEAVE instrument team present first-light observations with the WEAVE spectrograph. WEAVE is a powerful, next-generation multi-fibre spectrograph on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (La Palma, Canary Islands), now being commissioned on-sky and already generating high-quality data.

Scientific news
POSSIBLE DISCOVERY OF A SUPERNOVA REMNANT AROUND THE CALVERA PULSAR
9 December 2022    INT (WFC)
While analysing data from the LOFAR Two-Metre Sky Survey (LoTSS, a radio survey at 150 MHz), a team of astronomers discovered a ring of diffuse emission around the Calvera pulsar. The ring is large, at approximately one degree, and sits in a region otherwise empty of large-scale radio emission.

Statement
TRIBUTE TO TOM MARSH FROM THE ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES
2 December 2022
Tom has been a pre-eminent contributor to the ongoing research taking place at the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING). He was a prolific user of the William Herschel and Isaac Newton telescopes, starting with IDS, and then, of course, with ISIS. His primary research field was compact binary objects, but since he had such broad interests and expertise across astronomy, his work covered nearly all areas of research conducted at the ING.

Statement
THE ING CONGRATULATES THE NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS 2022
5 October 2022    WHT+JKT
The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes wishes to congratulate Anton Zeilinger (University of Vienna, Austria) who has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2022 for his empirical work carried out at the Roque de Los Muchachos and Teide Observatories since 2006 aimed at experimenting with entangled photons over large distances and thus establishing the pioneering work for secure quantum encrypted communication.

News release
START OF LIFU-MODE COMMISSIONING OF WEAVE
30 September 2022    WHT (WEAVE)
After a few initial problems, the image quality in the focal plane is now excellent, the spectrograph is well-focused and the other subsystems are working well enough to begin commissioning the LIFU mode of observations. That commissioning begins this week, and will be followed by science verification of the LIFU mode, and then, once the other sub-systems are ready, commissioning of the mIFU and MOS modes.

Scientific news
NEW SOURCE OF LITHIUM PRODUCTION FOUND IN THE UNIVERSE
26 September 2022    WHT (ISIS)
A team of international astronomers, led by researchers at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, has discovered a surprising high lithium abundance in the atmosphere of the companion star of the millisecond binary pulsar PSR J1023+0038.

External release
NEW SOURCE OF LITHIUM PRODUCTION FOUND IN THE UNIVERSE
IAC press release
21 September 2022    WHT (ISIS)
A team of researchers from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC), the University of Manchester and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology have detected an anomalously high lithium abundance in the atmosphere of the companion star of a binary millisecond pulsar. The lithium abundance is higher compared to stars with the same effective temperature and high-metallicity stars and so the study provides unambiguous evidence for fresh lithium production.

Outreach event
ASTROFEST LA PALMA 2022 - ROUNDTABLE ON WOMEN IN ASTRONOMY
7 September 2022

Announcement
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2023A
17 August 2022    INT
Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2023A.

Web news
LEIDEN UNIVERSITY OBSERVING TRIPS TO THE INT
12 July 2022    INT
Since 2008, undergraduate students from Leiden University have been visiting the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) as part of their astronomy bachelors degree programme. This programme gives students the opportunity to gain valuable experience in the field of observational astronomy. Through this programme they learn how to write a proposal, plan and execute their observations, and acquire the skills to analyse and present their findings.

Scientific news
A BINARY STAR IN THE HEART OF THE PLANETARY NEBULA OU 5
28 June 2022    WHT (HIPERCAM)
Using the HiPERCAM imager on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), astronomers have been able to observe in exquisite detail the eclipse of the central star of the planetary nebula Outters 5 by its binary companion.

Visit event
VISIT OF THE RECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LA LAGUNA
16 June 2022    WHT
On June 16 the Rector of the University of La Laguna, Rosa Maria Aguilar, visited the WHT.

Visit event
VISIT OF PALLAB GHOSH
14 June 2022    WHT
Pallab Ghosh is a BBC Science Reporter and he recorded on the WHT on June 14 to report on WEAVE on BBC News.

News release
THE WEAVE INSTRUMENT, MOUNTED ON THE PRIME FOCUS OF THE WHT
26 May 2022    WHT (WEAVE)
ING is pleased to announce that, on Wednesday 25 May 2022, the WEAVE prime focus unit was successfully mounted on the WHT.

Scientific news
DISTANT TRANS-NEPTUNIAN OBJECT CANDIDATES: FAINTER THAN PREDICTED OR FALSE POSITIVES?
20 May 2022    WHT (PF-QHY)
Astronomers from Spain and Romania have scrutinised two distant trans-Neptunian object candidates, identified by automated software analyses of data from NASAs TESS mission. They used PF-QHY, a CMOS camera mounted at the renewed prime focus of the William Herschel Telescope, and could not recover these objects.

Outreach event
VIRTUAL OUTREACH TALK FROM THE TELESCOPE, BY TELESCOPE OPERATOR EDUARDO MANTERO
2 May 2022    WHT
Virtual talk at the WHT by Eduardo Mantero (ING) to 76 students from 2nd ESO level, IES Corralejo, Fuerteventura.

Scientific news
NEW DETECTION METHOD FOR QUASARS IN THE EARLY UNIVERSE
6 April 2022    INT (IDS)
Astronomers from The Netherlands, UK and Germany have developed a new method to find distant quasars (quasi-stellar objects) which better distinguishes them from other objects that look like them. Using machine learning techniques and spectroscopic data taken with the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT), the researchers discovered possibly the highest-redshift quasar ever observed with the INT.

Announcement
STUDENTSHIP PROGRAMME AT THE ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES
23 February 2022    INT
Applications for the 2022/23 studentship programme are welcome until 25th March 2022. This programme offers five ING studentship positions (Sep 2022 - Sep 2023).

Announcement
BACK TO NORMAL VISITOR-MODE OBSERVATIONS AT THE INT
17 February 2022    INT
With the progressive relaxation of Covid-related travel restrictions, and the end of the volcanic eruption on La Palma in December 2021, ING is happy to announce that, starting 1 February 2022, we have resumed normal visitor-mode operations at the INT.

Announcement
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2022B
15 February 2022    INT

Outreach event
OUTREACH TALK AT IES SAN BENITO (LA LAGUNA, TENERIFE)
11 February 2022
Outreach talk at IES San Benito (La Laguna, Tenerife) by Cecilia Farina, coinciding with the International Women in Science Day.

Outreach event
CHATEA CON UNA ASTRONOMA
11 February 2022
Ceclia Farina participates in the 2022 edition of the Chat with an Astronomer event, organised by the Spanish Astronomical Society (SEA).

Announcement
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE CCI'S INTERNATIONAL TIME PROGRAMME ON THE CANARY ISLANDS 2022-2023
21 January 2022    WHT+INT
The International Scientific Committee (CCI) of the Roque de los Muchachos (ORM, La Palma) and Teide (OT, Tenerife) observatories invites applications for International Time Programmes (ITP) on telescopes installed at these Observatories. Deadline is midnight, 28th February 2022. .

Scientific news
FIRST DETECTION OF A SUPERNOVA EXPLOSION ORIGINATING FROM A WOLF-RAYET STAR
19 January 2022    WHT (ACAM)
A first-of-its-kind exploding star - thought to have existed only in theory - originating from a Wolf-Rayet star was recently discovered by an international team of collaborators led by Avishay Gal-Yam from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Observations were made with several telescopes around the world, including the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) and through the Isaac Newton Group (ING) Override Programme of targets of opportunity, using the Auxiliary-port CAMera (ACAM) imager and spectrograph.

Scientific news
TRACING THE GIANT STELLAR STREAM AROUND THE SOMBRERO GALAXY
28 December 2021    WHT (PFIP)
Using the PFIP imager on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), astronomers have been able to trace for the first time the complete tidal stream surrounding the Sombrero galaxy, a galaxy which exhibits a rare morphology not yet fully explained.

Announcement
INT SCHEDULE AND TIME ALLOCATIONS 2022A RELEASED
22 December 2021    INT
INT schedule and time allocations for semester 2022A are available online at http://c.ing.iac.es/schedules/?alloc

Press release
THE LARGEST COLLECTION OF FREE-FLOATING PLANETS DISCOVERED TO DATE
22 December 2021    INT (WFC)
Using observations and archival data from several telescopes around the world and in orbit, including the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT), astronomers have discovered at least 70 new free-floating planets (FFPs) - planets that wander through space without a parent star to orbit - in the Upper Scorpius OB stellar association, which is the nearest region of star formation to our Sun. This is the largest sample of such planets found in a single group and it nearly doubles the number known over the entire sky.

Season greeting
CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR GREETINGS
17 December 2021
The Staff of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes Wish You All The Best For 2022!

Video release
LA ULTIMA FRONTERA, FROM SPANISH TELEVISION
16 November 2021    WHT
The short film made by a Spanish Television (RTVE) team for the science dissemination series La Ultima Frontera has now been released.

Scientific news
WHITE DWARFS BECOME MAGNETIC AS THEY GET OLDER
19 October 2021    WHT (ISIS)
At least one out of four white dwarfs (WDs) will end its life as a magnetic star, and therefore magnetic fields are an essential component of WD physics. New insights into the magnetism of degenerate stars from a recent analysis of a volume-limited sample of WDs have provided the best evidence obtained so far of how the frequency of magnetism in WDs correlates with age. This could help to explain the origin and evolution of magnetic fields in WDs.

Statement
VOLCANIC ERUPTION IN LA PALMA
20 September 2021    WHT+INT
The volcanic eruption starting Sunday 19 September on La Palma has been widely covered in the media. ING wishes to reassure our user community that the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory has so far been unaffected by the volcanic activity or the tremors that preceded it. The access road is likewise unaffected and activity at the Observatory continues as usual.

Announcement
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2022A
13 August 2021    INT
ING Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2022A.

External release
UK-LED ROBOTIC SKY-SCANNER TAKES ITS PLACE ON TELESCOPE
12 July 2021    WHT (WEAVE)
A major telescope upgrade, which will allow a comprehensive census of the universe to answer fundamental astrophysical questions, is now close to completion.

External release
INGENIEUZE GEWEVEN SPECTROMETER BIJNA KLAAR VOOR DE START
12 July 2021    WHT (WEAVE)
WEAVE, een ingenieuze spectrometer met duizenden verplaatsbare glasvezels, is bijna klaar voor gebruik door sterrenkundigen. Dat meldt een team van astronomen en technici onder leiding van Scott Trager (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen). De spectrometer, inclusief de twee robots die de glasvezels in wisselende opstellingen leggen, is succesvol geinstalleerd op de Nederlands-Britse-Spaanse William Herschel Telescope op La Palma.

Press release
WEAVE GETS PRIMED FOR ON-SKY COMMISSIONING
12 July 2021    WHT (WEAVE)
All the main components of the William Herschel Telescope Enhanced Area Velocity Explorer (WEAVE) - the positioner, fibres, spectrograph and detectors - have now arrived on La Palma and are being integrated with the telescope. After that, WEAVE will begin its on-sky commissioning phase.

Announcement
INT SCHEDULE AND TIME ALLOCATIONS 2021B RELEASED
2 July 2021    INT
INT Schedule and Time Allocations 2021B Released.

Photo release
SPANISH TELEVISION FILMS
28 June 2021    WHT
On Thursday, June 24, a Spanish Television (TVE) team travelled to the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (ORM) to film part of the first episode of the series La Ultima Frontera, which is dedicated to science dissemination and has Javier Santaolalla, who discovered his vocation for science during a visit to the WHT in 1992, as its main presenter.

Scientific news
DISCOVERY OF A MASSIVE OPEN CLUSTER HIDING IN FULL SIGHT
7 June 2021    INT (IDS)
An international team of astronomers led by Ignacio Negueruela (Universidad de Alicante, Spain) has discovered one of the most massive star clusters in the solar neighbourhood, signposted by dozens of stars sufficiently bright to be seen with a small backyard telescope.

External release
ASTRONOMERS DISCOVER A MASSIVE STAR CLUSTER, OF INTERMEDIATE AGE, IN THE CONSTELLATION SCUTUM
2 June 2021    INT (WFC)
An international team of astrophysicists led by the Stellar Astrophysics Group of the University of Alicante (UA), the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC), and the University of Valparaiso (Chile) has discovered a massive cluster of stars of intermediate age in the direction of the Scutum constellation. This object, which has been named Valparaiso 1, lies some seven thousand light years away from the Sun, and contains at least fifteen thousand stars.

Announcement
OBSERVING OPPORTUNITY WITH THE WHT - PRIME FOCUS IMAGING
25 May 2021    WHT (PF-QHY)
Following the Announcement of Opportunity ING issued on 21 March 2021, for WHT service-mode prime-focus imaging observations during April and May, we now extend this opportunity, and invite further applications for observations.

Announcement
OBSERVING OPPORTUNITY WITH THE WHT - PRIME FOCUS IMAGING
22 March 2021    WHT (PF-QHY)
During the integration of WEAVE at the WHT, an opportunity has arisen to offer service-mode imaging with a camera (the QHY) mounted behind the new WEAVE prime-focus corrector, during April and May 2021.

Visit event
VISIT OF HUGH ELLIOTT, HER MAJESTY AMBASSADOR TO SPAIN
18 March 2021    WHT+INT
On 14 March 2021 Her Majesty Ambassador to Spain, Mr Hugh Elliott and his wife Mrs Toni Elliott, visited the Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory (ORM). They toured the Isaac Newton (INT) and the William Herschel Telescopes (WHT), and the Gran Telescopio Canarias, and heard about the latest instrumental developments and the international partnerships underpinning them. They also saw the domes of some of the UKs university-led telescopes at the ORM, including the Liverpool telescope, and SuperWASP and GOTO from Warwick University.

Announcement
STUDENTSHIP PROGRAMME AT THE ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES
25 February 2021    INT
We welcome applications for six places on the ING studentship programme 2021/22. The deadline for applications is Wednesday 31st March 2021, 24:00 WET. The programme provides a unique opportunity for up to four PhD, MSc or undergraduate astronomy students to get hands-on experience of work at an international observatory. Successful applicants will spend one year on La Palma, supporting imaging and spectroscopy runs at the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) and working on projects supervised by the ING staff. The studentship programme is open to anyone, but we particularly welcome applicants from our three partner countries: the Netherlands, Spain and the UK.

Announcement
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2021B
16 February 2021    INT
ING Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2021B.

Outreach event
CHAT WITH A FEMALE ASTRONOMER
11 February 2021
On the occasion of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, the fourth edition of Chat with an Astronomer, organised by the Woman and Astronomy Commission of the Spanish Astronomical Society, will take place from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm (Universal Time) on February 18. Cecilia Farina (Isaac Newton Telescope Group of Telescopes) will be one of the 75 astrophysicists who will be available to chat about her research, her experience as woman scientists, her research career or astronomy in general.

Announcement
STAFF-OBSERVER POSITION ADVERTISED AT ING
4 February 2021
ING is advertising a full-time permanent staff-observer position, application deadline 22 February.

Announcement
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE CCI'S INTERNATIONAL TIME PROGRAMME ON THE CANARY ISLANDS
28 January 2021    WHT+INT

Image release
THE GREAT CONJUNCTION OF JUPITER AND SATURN
23 December 2020    WHT (PF-QHY)
This image of an unusually-close conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn was obtained on 21 Dec 2020, during tests of the new optical corrector at the prime focus of the William Herschel Telescope (WHT). The image is a composite of exposures taken with a CMOS camera, through blue, green and red filters.

Season greeting
THE STAFF OF THE ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES WISH YOU ALL THE BEST FOR 2021
23 December 2020

Scientific news
VISIBLE MATTER DOMINATES GRAVITY IN THE INNER PARTS OF THE SPIRAL GALAXY NGC 6946
9 December 2020    WHT (PN.S)
An international collaboration, including astronomers from Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK, using the Planetary Nebulae Spectrograph (PN.S) mounted on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) has found that stars and gas dominate gravity in the inner parts of the disc galaxy NGC 6946, while dark matter dominates in its outer parts.

Announcement
TWO ADDITIONAL PLACES ON THE INT STUDENTSHIP SCHEME 2020-21
16 October 2020    INT (IDS,WFC)
ING is expanding its studentship programme and is advertising two extra places for the 2020/2021 call, to cover the period from now until the end of September 2021. This will be an exciting year for the ING students. Opportunities for INT observations are being expanded as the INT is increasingly operated in service mode, in response to travel restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, the students will be able to take part in the commissioning of the WEAVE instrument on the WHT, planned to begin in January 2021.

Scientific news
GREEN LIGHT UNVEILS THE PRESENCE OF AN OLD AND METAL-POOR HALO IN A GIANT ELLIPTICAL GALAXY
7 October 2020    WHT (PN.S)
Astronomers using Suprime-Cam on the Subaru Telescope and the Planetary Nebula Spectrograph (PN.S) on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) have been able to unveil the presence of an old and metal-poor halo in the outskirts of a giant elliptical galaxy in a loose group. This is the first study to clearly establish the link between a metal poor population of stars and the excess of planetary nebulae (PNe) in the outer regions of an elliptical galaxy.

Scientific news
SURVEY IDENTIFIES NON-CATALOGUED FAINT GEOSYNCHRONOUS DEBRIS THAT THREATENS OPERATIONAL SATELLITES
6 October 2020    INT (WFC)
Using the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT), a team led by University of Warwick astronomers has concluded that geosynchronous orbital debris posing a threat to operational satellites is not being monitored closely enough. In a new published survey they report that more than 75% of the geosynchronous orbital debris they detected could not be matched to known objects in public satellite catalogues.

Photo release
INSTALLATION OF WEAVE'S PRIME FOCUS OPTICS AND SPECTROGRAPH
16 September 2020    WHT (WEAVE)
On June 23, the new 6-lens, two-degree prime-focus corrector (PFC) arrived at the WHT. On September 11, ING celebrated WEAVE PFC first light, after images of Vega were obtained with the acquisition camera. On August 31, the WEAVE spectrograph arrived at the WHT and was installed in the GHRIL Nasmyth enclosure. Looking to the future, the fibre positioner with its full-fibre complement will soon complete tests in Oxford, for transport to La Palma in October. Delivery of WEAVE hardware to La Palma will be completed with the arrival of the detectors soon thereafter.

Statement
COVID-19 PROCEDURES FOR VISITING ASTRONOMERS AND CONTRACTORS
3 September 2020
With the end of the Covid-19 state of emergency in Spain, the Isaac Newton Group (ING) has resumed operation and development activities. Giving highest priority to the safety and well-being of staff, which can be effectively protected in the relative isolation of the observatory, we ask all prospective visiting astronomers and external contractors planning a visit to ING facilities to follow these guidelines.

Statement
​FOREST FIRE IN THE NORTH OF LA PALMA
26 August 2020    WHT+INT
On the afternoon of Friday August 21 a forest fire started in Garafia in the north of La Palma, at an elevation of approximately 700 meters above sea level, some 6 km north of the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (ORM). Thanks to the effective response, the fire was declared under control by the evening of Monday 24th, and science observations at ORM were resumed on the night of August 25.

Announcement
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2021A
15 August 2020    INT
Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2021A.

Scientific news
THE ISAAC NEWTON TELESCOPE GALACTIC PLANE SURVEYS
21 July 2020    INT (WFC)
The Isaac Newton Telescope Galactic Plane Survey (IGAPS) is the merger of two photometric surveys in the optical wavelenght range, IPHAS and UVEX, both based on data obtained in ~1860 square degrees covering the northern Galatic plane using the Wide Field Camera (WFC) from 2003 to 2018. The IGAPS point-source catalogue contains 295 million objects, and it provides measures of 174 parameters.

Statement
IN MEMORY OF REBECA GALERA 1988-2020
13 June 2020
With great sadness, we report that Rebeca Galera, support astronomer at the Isaac Newton Group (ING), died on June 11 on La Palma after a sudden illness. She had been admitted to the main Hospital of La Palma a few days earlier.

Statement;Statement
PAPER ON: "WHT TELESCOPE TIME IN THE YEARS OF THE WEAVE SURVEYS"
2 June 2020    WHT (WEAVE)
A paper is available describing INGs plans for how surveys and open time share the WHT time in the surveys era. We regret to inform successful proposers that completion of their programmes in 20A is not planned. Only in the event of serious setbacks with WEAVE integration we would consider carrying out such 20A scientific programmes, in service mode, during July and possibly August.

Statement
CORONAVIRUS: NEWS UPDATE FROM THE ING
10 May 2020
In a previous INGNEWS message we informed that all activities at the telescopes, including science observations at the INT and WEAVE integration at the WHT, stopped in 16 March 2020.

Scientific news
DISCOVERY OF A YOUNG BLAZAR PRODUCED BY THE MERGER OF TWO GALAXIES
14 April 2020    WHT (ISIS)
A blazar is a particular type of active galactic nucleus (AGN) with a central supermassive black hole which emits a jet, a flux of highly energetic particles and radiation moving almost at the velocity of light, and which is aligned along the observers line-of-sight. An international team of researchers has observed the birth of one of these objects for the first time by combining observations from several telescopes, among them the William Herschel Telescope (WHT).

Web news
THE ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES JOINS THE FIGHT AGAINST THE CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 ON LA PALMA
25 March 2020
The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING) joins the fight against the coronavirus COVID-19 on the island of La Palma with the delivery of masks, full-body overalls and boot covers to the Geriatric Hospital Nuestra Senora de Los Dolores of Santa Cruz de La Palma.

Statement
ING OPERATIONS ON HOLD DUE TO CORONAVIRUS
16 March 2020
Folllowing the declaration of a state of emergency (Estado de Alarma) by the Spanish Government on Saturday 14th March, ING has stepped up measures to protect its staff and visitors. With immediate effect and until further notice, staff are working from home, with minimal visits to the telescopes (for essential maintenance) and to the sea-level offices. There will be no day-time or night-time activity at the WHT or INT, i.e. no visiting observers and no observing, until further notice. ING staff will travel outside La Palma only when strictly necessary.

Statement
PUBLIC VISITS TO ING TELESCOPES CANCELLED
12 March 2020
ING announces that, starting Friday 13 March 2020, general-interest visits to the ING telescopes are being cancelled until further notice.

Web news
STUDENTSHIP PROGRAMME AT THE ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES
6 March 2020    INT
The 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) is operated at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos on the island of La Palma (Canary Islands, Spain) by the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING). The INT is used for astrophysical research by a large community of astronomers worldwide.

Press release
TWO STARS MERGED TO FORM MASSIVE WHITE DWARF
2 March 2020    WHT (ISIS)
A massive white dwarf star with a bizarre carbon-rich atmosphere could be two white dwarfs merged together, and which only narrowly avoided destruction, according to an international team led by University of Warwick (UK) astronomers, who observed the star with the William Herschel Telescope.

Photo release
TELEVISION CANARIA FILMS FOR NOVELEROS AT THE WHT
24 February 2020    WHT
Servando Rodriguez (ING) reports to the presenter of Noveleros, a programme of the Canarian Television on interesting jobs and lives.

Announcement
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2020B
19 February 2020

Announcement
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE CCI'S INTERNATIONAL TIME PROGRAMME ON THE CANARY ISLANDS
12 February 2020

Announcement
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE OPTICON H2020 TRANS-NATIONAL ACCESS PROGRAMME
12 February 2020

Photo release
PROGRESS ON THE NEW WHT PRIME FOCUS ROTATOR AND CORRECTOR SYSTEMS FOR WEAVE
3 February 2020    WHT (WEAVE)
During the stand-down last November, the new rotator system was successfully integrated within the WEAVE Prime Focus Assembly, and then mounted on the WHT top-end where an exhaustive campaign of tests took place over several weeks. The main objective was to mechanically align the rotator with the optical axis of the WHT primary mirror.

Web news
INT SCHEDULE AND TIME ALLOCATIONS 2020A RELEASED
8 January 2020    INT

Photo release;Web news
ALL THE BEST FOR 2020!
21 December 2019

Web news
WHT SCHEDULE AND TIME ALLOCATIONS 13 JAN-16 FEB RELEASED
29 November 2019    WHT

Photo release
IAC'S XXXI WINTER SCHOOL
23 November 2019    WHT
Visitors of the IACs XXXI Winter School on Computational Fluid Dynamics in Astrophysics visited the ING telescopes on 23 November, 2019.

Announcement
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR WHT OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2020A
7 November 2019

Scientific news
NEAR-EARTH ASTEROIDS SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY AT THE ISAAC NEWTON TELESCOPE
16 October 2019    INT (IDS)
The study of Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) is driven by both scientific and practical reasons. Because of their proximity to our planet, they can provide key information regarding the delivery of water and organic-rich material to the early Earth, and the subsequent emergence of life. On the other hand, these small bodies of the Solar System have non-negligible long-term probabilities of colliding with the Earth, and can be targets of future space exploration.

Press release
DIDIER QUELOZ, PHYSICS NOBEL PRIZE WINNER 2019, DEVELOPS AN ADVANCED TERRESTRIAL PLANET HUNTER FOR THE ISAAC NEWTON TELESCOPE
9 October 2019    INT (HARPS3)
The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING) and the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC) warmly congratulate James Peebles (Princeton University), Michel Mayor (University of Geneva) and Didier Queloz (Universities of Geneva and Cambridge) on the award of the Physics Nobel Prize 2019.

Photo release
DELIVERY OF THE NEW WHT PRIME FOCUS ROTATOR FOR WEAVE
8 October 2019    WHT (WEAVE)
This summer, the WEAVE rotator was delivered by IDOM to the William Herschel Telescope (WHT). At the WHT, the rotator was mounted on a elescope simulator, i.e. a rig allowing it to be positioned at any elevation angle, for a campaign of tests. The main aim of the tests was to verify the functionality and performance of the rotator before integrating it with the rest of WEAVE.

Photo release;Visit event
MARK THOMSON, EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN OF STFC, VISITS ING
4 October 2019    WHT+INT
On the 2nd and 3rd of October Prof Mark Thomson, Executive Chairman of the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) visited the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING). Shortly after arriving at the Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory, he met the observing teams at the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) and the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), and used a portable telescope outside the INT to view the Andromeda Galaxy, star clusters, nebulae, planets and the Moon. On the following morning, he learnt about the progress made with WEAVE and addressed the ING staff.

Scientific news
ASTRONOMERS DETECT GAS MOLECULES IN COMET FROM ANOTHER STAR
30 September 2019    WHT (ISIS)
An international team of astronomers have made a historic discovery using the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), detecting gas molecules in a comet which has tumbled into our Solar System from another star. It is the first time that astronomers have been able to detect this type of material in an interstellar object.

Photo release;Outreach event
ING PARTICIPATES IN THE MACARONESIA'S RESEARCHERS' NIGHT
26 September 2019

Announcement
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR WEAVE SCIENCE VERIFICATION PROJECTS
16 August 2019    WHT (WEAVE)
A science verification (SV) programme will be conducted, comprising small, well-defined SV projects from the WEAVE surveys and from the ING community. With this announcement, the ING and the WEAVE instrument consortium invite the ING community to submit letters of intent for WEAVE SV proposals.

Announcement
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2020A
14 August 2019

Announcement
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE OPTICON H2020 TRANS-NATIONAL ACCESS PROGRAMME
13 August 2019

Announcement
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR WHT OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2019B
29 May 2019    WHT
ING Announcement of Opportunity for WHT Observing Time in Semester 2019B

Visit event
WINNERS FROM THE DUTCH SCIENCE QUIZ
15 April 2019    WHT
On the 14th of April and the 24th of May, 2019, the winners from the Dutch Science Quiz (Nationale Wetenschapsquiz) visited the WHT as part of their prize.

Visit event
FRENCH AMATEURS
1 April 2019    WHT
Members of an association of astronomy based in the North of France: the Courrieres Amateur Astronomers Group (GAAC in French) and the French Association Magnitude 78.

Scientific news
DISCOVERY OF MANY NEW ULTRA-DIFFUSE GALAXIES IN GALAXY CLUSTERS
1 March 2019    INT (WFC)
Using the capabilities of the Wide Field Camera (WFC) at the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) to explore large areas of the sky and detect faint ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs), a collaboration of astronomers in the Netherlands and Spain performed a study to investigate these galaxies in detail, the Kapteyn IAC WEAVE INT Clusters Survey (KIWICS).

Statement
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2019B
19 February 2019

Scientific news
A GROUND-BASED NEAR-ULTRAVIOLET SECONDARY ECLIPSE OBSERVATION OF THE HOTTEST EXOPLANET
3 January 2019    INT (WFC)
A team of astronomers led by Matthew Hooton at Queens University Belfast (United Kingdom) used the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) to observe the hottest known exoplanet during its secondary eclipse, which is the first published example of any ground-based secondary eclipse observation at ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths.

Image release
COMET 46P/WIRTANEN
26 December 2018
Comet 46P/Wirtanen photographed by Abel de Burgos Sierra on the night of 16th December 2018 at perihelion, from the vicinity of the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT). He used a Canon EOS 6D Mark I camera with a Canon 100-400 L IS USM lens, on a SkyWatcher Star Adventurer mount. Comet 46P/Wirtanen is seen here on the right as a blurred, greenish object near the Pleiades. The bright, orange star on the left, between the Hyades and NGC 1647 open clusters, is Aldebaran (alpha Tauri).

Scientific news
ALL THE BEST FOR 2019!
21 December 2018
The staff of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes wish you all the best for 2019.

Scientific news
ING SCHEDULES AND TIME ALLOCATIONS 2019A RELEASED
18 December 2018
ING schedules and time allocations for semester 2019A are available online.

Scientific news
THE EXTENDED PLANETARY NEBULA SPECTROGRAPH (EPN.S) EARLY-TYPE GALAXY SURVEY
7 December 2018    WHT (PN.S)
Cosmological simulations predict that early-type galaxies (ETGs) are the results of extended mass accretion histories characterised by different numbers of mergers and merger mass ratios, their timing, and gas fractions. Depending on the sequence and nature of the mergers following the first phase of in-situ star formation, these accretion histories may lead to ETGs that have low or high mass halos, and that rotate fast or slow.

Photo release;Outreach event
VISIT OF SIMON MANLEY, HER MAJESTY'S AMBASSADOR TO SPAIN
28 November 2018

Scientific news
SEARCHING FOR THE WEAKEST DETECTABLE MAGNETIC FIELDS IN WHITE DWARFS
23 November 2018    WHT (ISIS)
Magnetic fields are present in a large variety of stars across the Hertszprung-Russell diagram, during all evolutionary stages from pre-main sequence stars, to main sequence stars and evolved stars, up to the final stages when the star explodes as a supernova. Magnetic fields play important roles in stellar evolution. Even a fairly weak magnetic field can suppress convection in stellar atmospheres and affect cooling times of extremely old white dwarfs. While the effects of the magnetic fields are well observed and sometime even understood, the origin of stellar magnetic fields is often unknown, and we do not know how fields evolve as stars evolve.

Scientific news
QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT CONFIRMED WITH LIGHT FROM DISTANT QUASARS
17 November 2018    WHT
A team of scientists led by quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Vienna has made a new test of quantum entanglement this time using photons from distant astronomical objects as collected by the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) and the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG).

Scientific news
TIME RESOLVED SPECTROSCOPY OF DUST AND GAS FROM EXTRASOLAR PLANETESIMALS
2 November 2018    WHT (ISIS (QUCAM CCDs))
An international team of astronomers led by Marie Karjalainen (Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, Spain), used electron-multiplying frame-transfer CCDs mounted on ISIS at the William Herschel Telescope to obtain time resolved spectroscopy of dust and gas from the extrasolar planetesimals orbiting WD 1145+017. The new results confirm previous findings showing the u-band excess and a decrease in line absorption during transits. Both can be explained by an opaque body blocking a fraction of the gas disc causing the absorption, implying that the absorbing gas is between the white dwarf and the transiting objects.

Scientific news
FIRST RESULTS FROM LUCKY SPECTROSCOPY, AN EQUIVALENT TECHNIQUE TO LUCKY IMAGING
29 October 2018    WHT (ISIS)
Following the principles of Lucky Imaging, a team of astronomers led by Jesus Maiz Apellaniz (Centro de Astrobiologia, Madrid) obtained Lucky Spectroscopy for five multiple massive-star systems on the nights of 2017 September 7 and 8. The spectra were obtained with the standard GOSSS-survey configuration using ISIS on the William Herschel Telescope, with some modifications (narrower slit and detector window, and tens of shorter exposures) to allow for lucky spatial separation of the individual component spectra. The spectra of delta Ori Aa+Ab and sigma Ori AaAb+B were successfully separated.

Scientific news
A FEASIBILITY STUDY ON THE PHOTOMETRIC DETECTION OF QUIESCENT BLACK HOLE X-RAY BINARIES
19 October 2018    WHT (ACAM)
Black hole X-ray binaries (BHXBs) are essential to our understanding of extreme physics across the universe, such as accretion/ejection processes, supernova explosions, long gamma-ray bursts and gravitational-wave sources. About 60 BHXBs have been discovered to date in the Galaxy through transient outbursts but, unfortunately, only 17 are confirmed dynamically (i.e. have a mass function greater than ~3 solar masses), owing to difficulties in measuring the spectrum of the companion star at very faint quiescent luminosities.

Scientific news
AN ALTERNATIVE TECHNIQUE FOR DETECTING FORMING EXOPLANETS AROUND YOUNG STARS
16 October 2018    WHT (ISIS (QUCAM CCDs))
The large number of detected exoplanets around evolved stars sharply contrasts with the lack of detections of forming planets in protoplanetary disks around young stars, mainly because of the observational difficulties. Earlier this year, an international team of astronomers led by Ignacio Mendigutia (Centro de Astrobiologia, Spain), decided to use the ISIS spectrograph on the WHT to study the nature of the exoplanet LkCa15 b, by means of a technique called spectro-astrometry. This allowed them to derive not only the intensity spectrum around the H-alpha emission, but also the so called photocentre spectrum and the full width half maximum (FWHM) spectrum.

Scientific news
APPROACHING THE GALACTIC METALLICITY FLOOR WITH THE DISCOVERY OF AN ULTRA-METAL-POOR STAR
8 October 2018    WHT + INT (ISIS + IDS)
The Pristine Survey allows astronomers to look for and research the oldest stars in our universe, with the goal of learning more about the young universe right after the Big Bang. Recently, the survey team reported on the discovery of a particularly metal-poor star, Pristine 221.8781+9.7844, in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Scientific news
THREE DYNAMICALLY DISTINCT STELLAR POPULATIONS IN THE HALO OF M49
1 October 2018    WHT (PN.S)
Using data obtained with the Planetary Nebula Spectrograph (PN.S) on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), astronomers pursued an original investigation to constrain the mass of the satellite progenitors of the stars in the halos and determine a proxy for their dynamical age by measuring the motions along the lines of sight of hundreds of stars that are in a particular stage of their evolution: the Planetary Nebulae (PNe). Instead of a uniform stellar population floating in the gravitational potential of the galaxy, astronomers identified three populations, one associated with the smooth halo of M49, a sub-component of bright planetary nebulae associate with the recent accretion of a dwarf galaxy (VCC 1249), and a population of stars associated with the intra-group light.

Scientific news
ALMOST 500 EXPLOSIONS FOUND IN GALAXY CORES
11 September 2018    WHT (ISIS + ACAM)
A team of astronomers from SRON, Radboud University and the University of Cambridge have found out that by tweaking the existing automated system, Gaia can be used to detect hundreds of peculiar transients in the centres of galaxies. They found about 480 transients over a period of about a year. Their new method will be implemented in the system as soon as possible allowing astronomers to determine the nature of these events.

Scientific news
EVIDENCE FOR HOT CLUMPY ACCRETION FLOW IN A TRANSITIONAL MILLISECOND PULSAR
10 September 2018    WHT (ACAM)
Astronomers analysing simultaneous data obtained using the William Herschel Telescope and the Gran Telescopio Canarias, have been able to model the observed light curves of a transitional millisecond pulsar and conclude that the accretion of clumpy material through the magnetic barrier of the neutron star can produce the observed near-IR/optical variability and correlations.

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2019A
16 August 2018
ING Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2019A

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE OPTICON H2020 TRANS-NATIONAL ACCESS PROGRAMME
16 August 2018
The call for observing time at night time telescopes supported by the OPTICON Trans-National Access programme is now open. It will close at exactly 23:59 UT on 2 September 2018.

Photo release
WLGSU LASER AND TAJINASTES
31 July 2018    WHT (WLGSU)
A sodium laser beam is launched from the ESO Wendelstein Laser Guide Star Unit (WLGSU). Tajinastes in the foreground. Date unknown, guessing 2018.

Scientific news
EXTRAORDINARY CALL FOR WHT SERVICE PROPOSALS
24 July 2018
Thanks to early completion of a recent pre-WEAVE standdown, a block of 7 bright nights (July 27 - August 2) has become available for service observations with the WHTs ISIS and/or ACAM.

News release
NEW TELESCOPE CONTROL SYSTEM AT THE WHT
28 June 2018    WHT
The ING has been working on equipping the Willaim Herschel Telescope (WHT) with new, digital electronics to replace the telescopes original analog electronics. After deployment and successful commissioning, the WHT resumed routine science observations on Friday, 22nd June, using the new electronic components as well as several updated software packages.

Scientific news
ING SCHEDULES AND TIME ALLOCATIONS 2018B RELEASED
26 June 2018
ING schedules and time allocations for semester 2018B available online.

Scientific news
DISCOVERY OF A MASSIVE PULSAR
28 May 2018    WHT (ISIS + ACAM)
Researchers from the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC) and the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) report the discovery of one of the most massive known neutron stars using the William Herschel (WHT), the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) and the IAC80 telescopes.

Scientific news
A NEW METHOD FOR GALAXY DENSITY WAVE ANALYSIS
24 April 2018    WHT (GHaFaS)

Scientific news
EXHIBIT LIGHT YEARS IN BARCELONA
24 April 2018
The exhibit Light Years by Catalonian artist Eug

Photo release
BBC - WONDERS OF THE MOON
18 April 2018    WHT
Wonders of the Moon is a BBC documentary which uses the latest, most detailed imagery to reveal the monthly life cycle of the moon. Partially filmed on La Palma and at the William Herschel Telescope site (minutes 5 to 9 approximately), the programme finds out how the moon shapes life on Earth, explores its mysterious dark side, and discovers how the moons journey around Earth delivers one of natures most awe-inspiring events - a total solar eclipse.

Video release;Visit event
BBC - WONDERS OF THE MOON
18 April 2018    WHT
Wonders of the Moon is a BBC documentary which uses the latest, most detailed imagery to reveal the monthly life cycle of the moon. Partially filmed on La Palma and at the William Herschel Telescope site (minutes 5 to 9 approximately), the programme finds out how the moon shapes life on Earth, explores its mysterious dark side, and discovers how the moons journey around Earth delivers one of natures most awe-inspiring events - a total solar eclipse.

Scientific news
A KEY ELEMENT TO LIFE IS LACKING IN THE CRAB NEBULA
16 April 2018    WHT (LIRIS)
Astronomers using the William Herschel Telescope find that there may be a cosmic lack of a chemical element essential to life, phosphorus, from observations of the Crab Nebula where they unexpectedly find very little. If this element is lacking in other parts of the cosmos, then it could be difficult for extra-terrestrial life to exist.

Scientific news
A 3D MAP OF THE INFANT UNIVERSE
6 April 2018    INT (WFC)
A team of astronomers led by Dr David Sobral of Lancaster University, UK made one of the largest 3D maps of the infant universe using the Subaru telescope in Hawaii and the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT). Looking back in time to 16 different epochs between 11 and 13 billion years ago, the researchers discovered almost 4,000 early galaxies, many of which will have evolved into galaxies like our own Milky Way.

Photo release;Outreach event
VISIT OF PROF HARRY VAN DER LAAN
14 March 2018    WHT
On 14 March Prof Harry van der Laan visited the ORM. Prof van der Laan was ESOs Director General in the eighties when the VLTs were conceived and designed. Earlier, he had been a key architect of the UK-NL partnership that led to the establishment of the Isaac Newton Group on La Palma. Van der Laan welcomed the plans for continued front-line instrumentation for the WHT.

Scientific news
STUDENTSHIP PROGRAMME AT THE ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES
28 February 2018
We welcome applications for four places on the ING studentship programme 2019/20. The deadline for applications is 31st March 2019. The programme provides a unique opportunity for up to four PhD, MSc or undergraduate astronomy students to get hands-on experience of work at an international observatory. Successful applicants will spend one year on La Palma, supporting imaging and spectroscopy runs at the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) and working on projects supervised by the ING staff. The studentship programme is open to anyone, but we particularly welcome applicants from our three partner countries: the Netherlands, Spain and the UK.

Scientific news
STUDENTSHIP PROGRAMME AT THE ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES
28 February 2018
We welcome applications for four places on the ING studentship programme 2018/19. The deadline for applications is 31st March 2018. The programme provides a unique opportunity for up to four PhD, MSc or undergraduate astronomy students to get hands-on experience of work at an international observatory. Successful applicants will spend one year on La Palma, supporting imaging and spectroscopy runs at the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) and working on projects supervised by the ING staff. The studentship programme is open to anyone, but we particularly welcome applicants from our three partner countries: the Netherlands, Spain and the UK.

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2018B
15 February 2018
ING Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2018B

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE OPTICON H2020 TRANS-NATIONAL ACCESS PROGRAMME
15 February 2018
The call for observing time at night time telescopes supported by the OPTICON Trans-National Access programme is now open. It will close at exactly 23:59 UT on 28 February 2018.

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE CCIS INTERNATIONAL TIME PROGRAMME ON THE CANARY ISLANDS
31 January 2018
The International Scientific Committee (CCI) of the Roque de los Muchachos (ORM, La Palma) and Teide (OT, Tenerife) observatories invites applications forInternational Time Programmes (ITP) on telescopes installed at these Observatories. Deadline is 28th February, 2018.More information: http://www.otri.iac.es/cci

Scientific news
HS2231+2441: A STAR KILLED PREMATURELY BY ITS COMPANION
15 January 2018    WHT (ISIS + ACAM)
HS2231+2441, an HW Vir type, is a binary system composed of a low-mass white dwarf, with only 0.2-0.3 of a solar mass, with an effective temperature of 28,500 K, and a brown dwarf with 36-46 Jupiter masses. The binary system has an orbital period of approximately 3 hours. HS2231+2441 is the least massive HW Vir system known.

Scientific news
SPECTROSCOPY AND THERMAL MODELLING OF THE FIRST INTERSTELLAR OBJECT 1I/2017 U1
14 January 2018    WHT (ACAM)
Astronomers using ACAM on the William Herschel Telescope report the spectroscopic characterisation of

Scientific news
THE STAFF OF THE ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES WISH YOU ALL THE BEST FOR 2018
20 December 2017
The Staff of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes Wish You All The Best for 2018.

Scientific news
ING SCHEDULES AND TIME ALLOCATIONS 2018A RELEASED
18 December 2017
ING schedules and time allocations for semester 2018A available online.

Outreach event
ISAAC NEWTON TELESCOPE - 50 YEARS SINCE FIRST LIGHT
1 December 2017    INT
The ING celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first light ceremony of the INT. A special momentum took place on the night of the 1st of December, 2017.

Image release
A/2017 U1 - AN INTERSTELLAR VISITOR
6 November 2017    WHT (ACAM)
A/2017 U1 is the first known small body from interstellar space. It is visible in the centre of this 5-minute exposure using the ACAM imager on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) on October 28, 2017. At the time of the observations, the WHT was able to lock on A/2017 U1 while it was travelling at a speed of 26 kilometres per second (the background, much more distant stars appear streaked because the telescope was tracking the motion of A/2017 U1).

Scientific news
HIPERCAM SUCCESSFULLY COMMISSIONED ON THE WILLIAM HERSCHEL TELESCOPE
2 November 2017    WHT (HiPERCAM)
HiPERCAM was successfully commissioned on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) on 17 October 2017 by a team from the Universities of Sheffield, Warwick and the UK Astronomy Technology Centre, Edinburgh. HiPERCAM was designed as a next generation version of ULTRACAM.

Scientific news
WHT HELPS TO MEASURE THE SIZE OF A STELLAR-MASS BLACK HOLE JET
31 October 2017    WHT (ULTRACAM)
Nothing can emerge from a black hole. Yet, in nature, we find ultra-powerful jets of energy that shoot out from the immediate vicinities of growing black holes. How these jets form remains a puzzle. In a new study appearing in the journal Nature Astronomy, astronomers announce that they have new clues to this mystery.

Video release;Outreach event
50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ISAAC NEWTON TELESCOPE'S INAUGURATION, FEATURED ON CANARIAN TELEVISION
5 October 2017    INT
Buenos dias Canarias (Canarian Television) reports on the 50th anniversary of the Isaac Newton Telescopes inauguration (1967). Broadcast on the 4th of October, 2017.

Scientific news
THE FASTEST-SPINNING KNOWN MILLISECOND PULSAR IN THE GALACTIC FIELD
25 September 2017    INT (WFC)
Using observations across the entire electro-magnetic spectrum, astronomers have discovered a radio pulsar spinning 707 times every second, making it the fastest known spinning pulsar in the Galactic field and the second fastest known overall.

Scientific news
TRANSMISSION SPECTROSCOPY OF HOT JUPITERS REVEALS CONTRASTING ATMOSPHERES
28 August 2017    WHT (ACAM)
A team of researchers led from the University of Warwick, UK is undertaking a transmission spectroscopy survey of hot Jupiters using the ACAM imager and spectrograph on the William Herschel Telescope. By observing spectroscopically an exoplanets transit across the face of its host star the team is able to detect changes in opacity in the exoplanets atmosphere as a function of wavelength. These early results have demonstrated the capabilities of ACAM to detect atmospheric opacity sources such as Rayleigh scattering, and to distinguish between clear and cloudy atmospheres with errors in the transmission spectrum of around 1 atmospheric scale height, comparable to Hubble Space Telescope.

Scientific news
THE PUZZLE OF ULTRA-DIFFUSE GALAXIES
25 August 2017    WHT (PFIP)
With the naked eye, we can see some 3000 stars in a dark night. However, if Earth would reside within an ultra-diffuse galaxy, we would only spot a few dozen stars on the sky. Galaxies of this type were either not able to produce more stars in the first place, or they got stripped of their stars by tidal forces. Intriguingly, though, larger telescopes and improved imaging techniques have recently led to the discovery of many ultra-diffuse galaxies in the harshest environments possible: galaxy clusters.

Photo release
PARTIAL SOLAR ECLIPSE OVER THE WILLIAM HERSCHEL TELESCOPE
22 August 2017    WHT
The total solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 was seen as a partial eclipse from the Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory at sunset. Shown above is the eclipsed Sun over the dome of the William Herschel Telescope as photographed by Jure Skvarč (ING), with exposure set to F/11.0, ISO 200 and 1/60s. Credit: Jure Skvarč (Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes)

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2018A
15 August 2017
ING Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2018A

Scientific news
ART FROM THE LA PALMA TELESCOPES: THE EXHIBIT LIGHT YEARS OPENS IN PANAMA
3 August 2017

Scientific news
ING SCHEDULES AND TIME ALLOCATIONS 2017B RELEASED
11 July 2017
ING schedules and time allocations for semester 2017B available online.

Scientific news
A LARGE FRACTION OF RAPIDLY-GROWING SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES EVADE CENSUS
10 July 2017    WHT (ISIS + ACAM)
Highly obscured and rapidly growing supermassive black holes (SMBH), known as active galactic nuclei (AGN), might represent the key phase when SMBH accreted most of their mass and when the relationship between galaxies and their central SMBHs was established. A new study by an international team of astronomers led by Dr Silvia Mateos from the Instituto de Fisica de Cantabria (CSIC-UC) in Spain, now suggests that many of the brightest SMBH may be escaping our detection as they hide in heavily obscured environments.

Outreach event
WILLIAM HERSCHEL TELESCOPE - 30 YEARS SINCE FIRST LIGHT
22 June 2017    WHT
The William Herschel Telescope saw first light on the 1st of June, 1987. Coinciding with this ephemeris, we organised a birthday party at the Observatory.

Outreach event
30 YEARS SINCE WHT FIRST LIGHT CELEBRATION
22 June 2017    WHT
The William Herschel Telescope saw first light on the 1st of June, 1987. Coinciding with this ephemeris, ING staff organised a birthday party at the Observatory. We took some group commemorative photos at the WHT and had a lunch altogether with a special cake.

Outreach event
30 YEARS SINCE WHT FIRST LIGHT CELEBRATION
22 June 2017    WHT
The William Herschel Telescope saw first light on the 1st of June, 1987. Coinciding with this ephemeris, ING staff organised a birthday party at the Observatory. We took some group commemorative photos at the WHT and had a lunch altogether with a special cake.

Video release
HEAVENS ON EARTH
8 June 2017    WHT
Heavens On Earth - La Palma from vikas chander on Vimeo. Time-lapse movie of the WHT, including other views of the Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory and La Palma island. Available formats: Vimeo. Credit: Vikas Chander and the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, La Palma.

Scientific news
SUPERBUBBLES IN THE INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM OF THE ANTENNAE GALAXIES
8 May 2017    WHT (GHaFaS)
A team of scientists led by members of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC), in collaboration with the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM), have detected and measured a complete "carpet" of expanding bubbles in the interstellar medium of the "Antennae", a pair of galaxies in interaction which will eventually merge. The work, published in Monthy Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society is based on observations with GHaFaS on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT). This instrument is capable of making a map of the velocities of a complete galaxy using the emission from the ionized hydrogen in its interstellar medium.

Image release
PLANETARY NEBULA NGC 1514
5 April 2017    INT (WFC)
Planetary nebulae are believed to represent the fate of all Sun-like stars; as the star evolves it sheds its outers layers in the form of a dense stellar wind which is then ionised to form the glowing shell of the planetary nebula. It has become apparent that the wide array of shapes found in planetary nebulae are difficult to understand in a single star scenario.

Scientific news
STARS REGULARLY RIPPED APART BY BLACK HOLES IN COLLIDING GALAXIES
31 March 2017    WHT (ISIS + ACAM)
Based on spectroscopic observations taken with the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) in 2015, astronomers from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at University of Sheffield have found the first evidence for a stellar tidal disruption event (TDE) in a galaxy with a massive on-going starburst.

Scientific news
STUDENTSHIP PROGRAMME AT THE ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES
1 March 2017
We welcome applications for four places on the ING studentship programme 2017/18. The deadline for applications is 31st March 2017. The programme provides a unique opportunity for up to four PhD, MSc or undergraduate astronomy students to get hands-on experience of work at an international observatory. Successful applicants will spend one year on La Palma, supporting imaging and spectroscopy runs at the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) and working on projects supervised by the ING staff. The studentship programme is open to anyone, but we particularly welcome applicants from our three partner countries: the Netherlands, Spain and the UK.

Scientific news
SIGNING OF THE AGREEMENT FOR THE SCIENTIFIC EXPLOITATION OF THE WILLIAM HERSCHEL AND ISAAC NEWTON TELESCOPES
23 February 2017    WHT+INT
The future of the William Herschel and Isaac Newton telescopes on La Palma has been guaranteed through a new operation agreement between the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Instituto de Astro

Scientific news
NEWLY DISCOVERED PLANETS COULD HAVE WATER ON THEIR SURFACES
23 February 2017    WHT (ACAM)
An international team of astronomers has found a system of seven potentially habitable planets orbiting a star 39 light years away, three of which could have water on their surfaces increasing the possibility they could host life. Using ground and space instruments and telescopes, including the ACAM imager on the William Herschel Telescope, the team identified the planets as they passed in front of the ultracool dwarf star known as TRAPPIST-1. The star has around eight per cent of the mass of the Sun and is no bigger than Jupiter.

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2017B
16 February 2017
ING Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2017B

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE OPTICON H2020 TRANS-NATIONAL ACCESS PROGRAMME
16 February 2017
The call for observing time at night time telescopes supported by the OPTICON Trans-National Access programme is now open. It will close at exactly 23:59 UT on 28 February 2017.

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE CCIS INTERNATIONAL TIME PROGRAMME ON THE CANARY ISLANDS
16 February 2017
The International Scientific Committee (CCI) of the Roque de los Muchachos (ORM, La Palma) and Teide (OT, Tenerife) observatories invites applications for International Time Programmes (ITP) on telescopes installed at these Observatories. Deadline is 28th February, 2017. More information: http://www.otri.iac.es/cci

Scientific news
NEW LIGHT ON DARK MATTER HALOS
13 February 2017    WHT (GHaFaS)
For the past twenty years observers have been trying to test the effects of the predicted dark matter halos on the bars in barred galaxies. The basic idea is that according to simulation models which include the halos, these should have acted as a gravitational brake and slowed down the rotation of the bars during the lifetimes of galaxy discs. This could be tested by measuring the corotation radius corresponding to the bar, which is the radius at which the angular pattern speed of the bar is equal to the angular speed of the stars in the disc. The problem has been the difficulty of measuring the corotation radius. However, a group at the Instituto de Astrof

Scientific news
AN INTRINSICALLY VERY LUMINOUS LENSED HIGH-REDSHIFT GALAXY
6 February 2017    WHT (ACAM)
An international team led by researchers from the Instituto de Astrof

Scientific news
TURBULENCE VELOCITY PROFILE CHARACTERIZATION WITH STEREO-SCIDAR
6 February 2017    WHT (CANARY)
Stereo-SCIDAR is a high-altitude resolution and high sensitivity optical turbulence profiler. By measuring the intensity pattern of two nearby stars astronomers can triangulate the altitude and strength of optical turbulence in the Earths atmosphere. And by introducing a temporal delay between these two signals, they can also calculate the horizontal velocity of each layer. Stereo-SCIDAR was developed by Durham University, UK as part of the Canary Adaptive-Optics demonstrator project (CANARY) on the William Herschel Telescope, and it has been operated on the Isaac Newton Telescope for a total of 28 nights.



Scientific news
LYMAN-ALPHA GIANT HALOS AROUND EARLY MILKY WAY TYPE GALAXIES
12 January 2017    INT (WFC)
Astronomers from the Universities of Lancaster in the UK and Leiden in the Netherlands report the discovery of giant halos around early Milky Way type galaxies which are composed of Lyman-alpha photons that have struggled to escape them.

Scientific news
A DEFICIT OF DARK MATTER IN ELLIPTICAL GALAXIES
30 December 2016    WHT (PN.S + SAURON)
The missing mass problem is a long-standing issue in astrophysics, being present in galaxies, cluster of galaxies and even at the cosmological scale. Astronomers from Taiwan have used archival data from PN.S and SAURON to study the internal dynamics of seven nearby elliptical galaxies, and report finding a dearth of dark matter. They conclude that the dynamics of these galaxies are well explained by MOdified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND).

Scientific news
ING SCHEDULES AND TIME ALLOCATIONS 2017A RELEASED
23 December 2016
ING schedules and time allocations for semester 2017A available online.

Scientific news
ALL THE BEST FOR 2017
23 December 2016
The staff of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes wish you all the best for 2017.

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE OPTICON H2020 TRANS-NATIONAL ACCESS PROGRAMME
9 September 2016
The call for observing time at night time telescopes supported by the OPTICON Trans-National Access programme is now open. It will close at exactly 23:59 UT on 25 September 2016.

Scientific news
CANARYS SODIUM LASER GUIDE STAR SUCCESSFULLY COMMISSIONED
5 September 2016    WHT (CANARY)
The latest upgrade to CANARY was commissioned between the 19th and 25th July, 2016 with the installation of the European Southern Observatorys Wendelstein sodium Laser Guide Star Unit (WLGSU) near the William Herschel Telescope. CANARY is an open-loop Adaptive Optics (AO) system that uses multiple laser-guide stars and deformable mirrors, providing the first on-sky test of combined wide-field Laser Guide Star (LGS) tomography and open-loop AO control.

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2017A
15 August 2016
ING Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2017A

Scientific news
AF2-WYFFOS AVAILABLE IN 2017A
4 August 2016
ING would like to make its users aware that AF2-WYFFOS, the WHTs multi-fibre MOS, will continue to be offered through semester 2017A.

Photo release
SUCCESSFUL REMOVAL AND REPLACEMENT OF THE WHTS FLIP RING
29 July 2016    WHT (WEAVE)
In preparation for the arrival of the WEAVE MOS spectrograph, and for the first time in 30 years, the WHTs inner top-end ring (flip ring) has been successfully removed, craned to the ground floor, and the next day, re-installed on the telescope.

Scientific news
A RADIO PULSING WHITE DWARF BINARY STAR
28 July 2016    WHT + INT (ISIS + ULTRACAM + IDS)
Astronomers have discovered a new type of exotic binary star. In the system AR Scorpii a rapidly spinning white dwarf star powers electrons up to almost the speed of light. These high energy particles release blasts of radiation that lash the companion red dwarf star, and cause the entire system to pulse dramatically every 1.97 minutes with radiation ranging from the ultraviolet to radio. The research is published in the journal Nature on 28 July 2016.

Scientific news
AN EXTREMELY WEAK MAGNETIC FIELD IN A WHITE DWARF
26 July 2016    WHT (ISIS)
A team of astronomers reports the discovery of one of the very weakest magnetic fields ever securely detected in a white dwarf. The observation was made using the ISIS spectropolarimeter on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), in just one hour of exposure time and using the red and the blue arms of the spectrograph. This is part of a large survey of bright white dwarfs to search for such weak magnetic fields.

Scientific news
AOLI DELIVERS ITS FIRST ADAPTIVE-OPTICS IMAGES
25 July 2016    WHT (AOLI)
The Adaptive Optics Lucky Imager (AOLI) on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) has obtained its first adaptive-optics closed-loop results, an important milestone in the development of this state-of-the-art instrument that aims at combining adaptive optics (AO) and lucky imaging (LI) to obtain the highest-ever resolution images at visible wavelengths from the ground.

Scientific news
THREE SUPERNOVA SHELLS AROUND A YOUNG STAR CLUSTER
17 July 2016    WHT (GHaFaS)
A group of astronomers, led by researchers at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC), has found the first known case of three supernova remnants one inside the other. Using a method developed within the group for detecting huge expanding bubbles of gas in interstellar space, they were observing the galaxy M33 in our Local Group of galaxies and found an example of a triple-bubble. The results help to understand the feedback phenomenon, a fundamental process controlling star formation and the dissemination of metals produced in massive stars.

Scientific news
ING SCHEDULES AND TIME ALLOCATIONS 2016B RELEASED
5 July 2016
ING schedules and time allocations for semester 2016B are available online.

Photo release
THE WHT AND THE MILKY WAY TOWARDS THE GALACTIC CENTRE
28 June 2016    WHT
The William Herschel Telescope and the Milky Way towards the Galactic Centre. Visible from left to right: open cluster Messier 23, open cluster Messier 21, the Triffid Nebula or Messier 20, the Lagoon Nebula or Messier 8, and the Butterfly Cluster or Messier 6.

Web news
STEPHEN HAWKING VISITS LA PALMA
12 June 2016
Stephen Hawking visited La Palma on 11th June, 2016, and our Director, Marc Balcells, presented him with various souvenirs.

Outreach event
WILLIAM HERSCHEL, ASTRONOMER AND MUSICIAN
2 June 2016
La Palma Music Festival gathers some of the best classical musicians from around the world. This year the Festival will pay tribute to William Herschel (1738-1822), the musician who became one of the most famous astronomers of his time. The Festival Orchestra directed by Thomas Mandl will perform William Herschels Symphony No.8 at Teatro Circo de Marte in Santa Cruz de La Palma on Tuesday 8th June.

Scientific news
LUCKY IMAGING OF THE MULTIPLE T TAURI SYSTEM LKHα 262/LKHα 263
31 May 2016    WHT (AOLI)
Astronomers report high-spatial resolution, i band imaging of the multiple T Tauri system LkHa 262/LkHa 263 obtained during the first commissioning period of the Adaptive Optics Lucky Imager (AOLI) at the William Herschel Telescope on September 24th and 25th, 2013. AOLI is a state-of-the-art instrument which combines two well-proven techniques for extremely high spatial resolution with ground-based telescopes: Lucky Imaging (LI) and Adaptive Optics (AO). Although the instrument was not yet complete, and was not operated in Adaptive-Optics mode, these observations demonstrate the high capabilities of the LI mode, yielding a FWHM for the best PSF of only 0.15 arcsec.

Scientific news
FIRST RESULTS FROM THE PAU CAMERA (PAUCAM)
23 May 2016    WHT (PAUCam)
Commissioning of PAUCam, the imager for the Physics of the Accelerating Universe survey, is complete, and routine science exploitation is under way (for first-light images, see earlier news item). PAUCam is a visiting instrument instrument at the WHT, and is available for use by astronomers from the ING community.

Scientific news
FAST AND FURIOUS BLACK HOLE OBSERVED WITH THE WHT
16 March 2016    WHT (ULTRACAM)
In a paper published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, astronomers report catching V404 Cygni black hole while it was shimmering and emitting red flashes, some of which were shorter than a timespan of only 1/40th of a second.

Scientific news
STUDENTSHIP PROGRAMME AT THE ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES
16 February 2016
We welcome applications for four places on the ING studentship programme 2016/17. The deadline for applications is 1st March 2016. The programme provides a unique opportunity for up to four PhD, MSc or undergraduate astronomy students to get hands-on experience of work at an international observatory. Successful applicants will spend one year on La Palma, supporting imaging and spectroscopy runs at the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) and working on projects supervised by the ING staff. The studentship programme is open to anyone, but we particularly welcome applicants from our three partner countries: the Netherlands, Spain and the UK.

Photo release
WEAVE HANDLING TROLLEY ARRIVES AT THE WHT
15 February 2016    WHT (WEAVE)
On 18 January 2016, the first completed component for the WEAVE project, the handling trolley, arrived at the WHT.

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2016B
15 February 2016
ING Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2016B

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE OPTICON TRANS-NATIONAL ACCESS PROGRAMME
12 February 2016
The call for observing time at night time telescopes supported by the OPTICON Trans-National Access programme is now open. It will close at exactly 23:59 UT on 2 March 2016.

Scientific news
A NEW LIFE FOR THE WILLIAM HERSCHEL AND ISAAC NEWTON TELESCOPES
22 January 2016
Interview with the ING director published on the local newspaper Diario de Avisos about "Una nueva vida para los telescopios Herschel y Newton" (in Spanish).

Scientific news
ING SCHEDULES AND TIME ALLOCATIONS 2016A RELEASED
5 January 2016
> ING schedules and time allocations for semester 2016A are available online.

Scientific news
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!
26 December 2015
The staff of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes wish you all the best for 2016.

Scientific news
ING TELESCOPES PROVIDE UNIQUE OBSERVATIONS IN SUPPORT OF THE ESA ROSETTA MISSION
23 October 2015    WHT + INT (ISIS + WFC)
The European Space Agencys Rosetta mission is currently exploring comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The Rosetta mission is a hugely ambitious endeavour - the first spacecraft to orbit a comet and follow it on its journey towards the Sun, accompanied by its lander, Philae, which made the first ever landing on a comet in November 2014. Observatories across the planet are supporting this mission, and the ING is playing an important part in this - especially in providing unique observations this year as the comet passed its closest point to the Sun and highest level of activity.

Scientific news
COMMON ACCRETION ACROSS YOUNG STELLAR OBJECTS, WHITE DWARFS, BLACK HOLES AND SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES
16 October 2015    WHT (ULTRACAM)
An international team of astronomers have discovered a previously unknown link between the way young stars, white dwarfs and black holes grow feeding from their surroundings. Accretion seems to be a universal process operating in a similar way despite the different size, age, temperature and gravity of the accreted object.

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2016A
17 August 2015
ING Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2016A

Video release
PLUTO REVEALED
10 August 2015    WHT
Report on the encounter of NASAs New Horizons mission with Pluto and supporting observations provided by the William Herschel Telescope. Broadcast in the Spanish television (TVE) programme Informe Semanal on 1st August, 2015. See also WHT Observes Pluto in Support of NASAs New Horizons Mission.

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE OPTICON TRANS-NATIONAL ACCESS PROGRAMME
7 August 2015
The call for observing time at night time telescopes supported by the OPTICON Trans-National Access programme is now open. It will close at exactly 23:59 UT on 31 August 2015.

Video release
CANARY LASER IN ACTION
24 July 2015    WHT (CANARY)
These videos were made while the laser guide star system of CANARY was being used at the William Herschel Telescope on 29 June, 2015. CANARY is a wide-field laser guide star tomography and open-loop AO (MOAO) demonstrator with the goal of emulating a single channel of the proposed E-ELT MOAO instrument, EAGLE, albeit at 1/10th scale. By coincidence the videos were obtained on the night the King of Spain, Felipe VI, was invited to join the observations at Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the inauguration of the Canarian Observatories.

Scientific news
WHT OBSERVES PLUTO IN SUPPORT OF NASAS NEW HORIZONS MISSION
23 July 2015    WHT (ACAM)
The William Herschel Telescope (WHT) has participated in 2014 and 2015 in a worldwide campaign to spectroscopically follow up Pluto from the ground in support of the encounter of NASAs New Horizons spacecraft with Pluto.

Image release
THE COCOON NEBULA
13 June 2015    INT (WFC)
olour-composite (RGB) image of the Cocoon nebula obtained from a combination of wide- and narrow-band images taken using the Wide Field Camera (WFC) on the 2.5 m Isaac Newton Telescope. Only part of the CCD #4 is shown.

Scientific news
FIRST LIGHT ON PAU CAMERA
13 June 2015    WHT (PAUCam)
The camera for the PAU (Physics of the Accelerating Universe) project succesfully saw first light at the prime focus of the William Herschel Telescope on the night June 3rd. PAUCam is an advanced imager comprising a mosaic of 18 state-of-the-art, fully-depleted, red-sensitive Hamamatsu CCDs, and a field of view with a diameter of about one degree (or about 14 times the sky area covered by the WHTs current prime-focus imager), of which 40 arcminutes are unvignetted. PAUCam was designed and built by a consortium of Spanish institutions (IFAE, ICE-CSIC/IEEC and PIC from Barcelona; CIEMAT and IFT-UAM/CSIC from Madrid).

Scientific news
FRESH EVIDENCE FOR HOW WATER REACHED EARTH FOUND IN ASTEROID DEBRIS
7 May 2015    WHT (ISIS)
Water delivery via asteroids or comets is likely taking place in many other planetary systems, just as it happened on Earth, according to new evidence found that numerous planetary bodies, including asteroids and comets, contain large amounts of water.

Scientific news
BINARITY IN PLANETARY NEBULAE GIVES CLUES TO UNDERSTAND THE ABUNDANCE DISCREPANCY PROBLEM
5 May 2015    WHT (ISIS)
Spectroscopic observations with the William Herschel Telescope of three planetary nebulae have shed new light on the abundance discrepancy problem. Astronomers from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias have shown that the largest abundance discrepancies (as high as 300 in certain positions in the nebula) are reached in planetary nebulae that have a close binary central star.

Scientific news
MERGERS OF GALAXY CLUSTERS CAN TRIGGER STAR FORMATION
4 May 2015    INT (WFC)
Galaxies are often found in clusters, which contain many ‘red and dead’ members that stopped forming stars in the distant past. Over billions of years, galaxy clusters build up structure in the universe - merging with adjacent clusters. When this happens, there is a huge release of energy as the clusters collide. The resulting shock wave travels through the cluster like a tsunami, but until now there was no evidence that the galaxies themselves were affected very much.

Scientific news
FIRST NEAR EARTH ASTEROIDS DISCOVERED FROM LA PALMA
15 April 2015    INT (WFC)
In 2014 the Isaac Newton Telescope became the first telescope in La Palma to discover and secure five Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) as part of the EURONEAR project and as a result of the allocation of several override programmes awarded by the time allocation committees.

Scientific news
"CON EL WILLIAM HERSCHEL Y EL SATÉLITE GAIA TRAZAREMOS UN MAPA DE LA VÍA LÁCTEA DEL SIGLO XXI"
31 March 2015
"Con el William Herschel y el Satélite Gaia Trazaremos un Mapa de la Vía Láctea del Siglo XXI", an interview with the ING Director published in local online newspaper LaPalmaAhora.com

Scientific news
DIRECT EVIDENCE FOR AN EVOLVING DUST CLOUD FROM AN EXOPLANET
17 March 2015
Astronomers observed star KIC 12557548 on five nights in July 2013, using ULTRACAM on the William Herschel Telescope, to search for the colour dependence of the transit depth by KIC 12557548 b exoplanet. A clear transit signal was detected only on the first night. During the remaining four nights, the planet was in a quiescent period, with little or no dust cloud obscuring the star. As expected, the astronomers managed to observe differences in transit depths between three different bands on first night, with an increase in depth toward shorter wavelengths. This effect is consistent with extinction from the putative dust cloud surrounding the planet. Remaining nights allowed to constrain the size of the planet to less than 5.4 radii of Mercury.

Scientific news
STUDENTSHIP PROGRAMME AT THE ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES
15 March 2015
We welcome applications for four places on the ING studentship programme 2015/16. The deadline for applications is: Tuesday 1st May 2015. The programme provides a unique opportunity for up to four PhD, MSc or undergraduate astronomy students to get hands-on experience of work at an international observatory. Successful applicants will spend one year on La Palma, supporting imaging and spectroscopy runs at the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) 2.5m and working on projects supervised by the ING staff. The studentship programme is open to anyone, but we particularly welcome applicants from our three partner countries: the Netherlands, Spain and the UK.

Scientific news
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE MULTI-OBJECT SPECTROSCOPY IN THE NEXT DECADE
26 February 2015
The international conference Multi-Object Spectroscopy in the Next Decade. Big Questions, Large Surveys and Wide Fields (Santa Cruz de La Palma, 2-6 March 2015) organised by the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, was presented to the media on La Palma during a press conference that took place in the Townhall.

Scientific news
FIRST OBSERVATIONAL PROOF OF EXISTENCE OF A DOUBLE-DEGENERATE, SUPER-CHANDRASEKHAR SYSTEM
20 February 2015    INT (WFC)
An international group of astronomers has found the first pair of white dwarfs with a total combined mass unequivocally above the Chandrasekhar limit of 1.4 solar masses. The orbital period of the system is 4.2 hours, which means that the stars are close enough to spiral in due to the emission of gravitational waves and eventually merge in about 700 million years. This finding, which has been published in Nature, provides observational support to the double-degenerate path of formation of type Ia supernovae, so far a theoretical possibility under ongoing debate.

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE CCIS INTERNATIONAL TIME PROGRAMME ON THE CANARY ISLANDS
16 February 2015
The International Scientific Committee (CCI) of the Roque de los Muchachos (ORM, La Palma) and Teide (OT, Tenerife) observatories invites applications for International Time Programmes (ITP) on telescopes installed at these Observatories. Deadline is 29th February, 2016. More information: http://www.otri.iac.es/cci

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2015B
16 February 2015
ING Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2015B

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE OPTICON TRANS-NATIONAL ACCESS PROGRAMME
31 January 2015
The call for observing time at night time telescopes supported by the OPTICON Trans-National Access programme is now open. It will close at exactly 23:59 UT on 1 March and no requests for late submissions will be accepted.

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE CCIS INTERNATIONAL TIME PROGRAMME ON THE CANARY ISLANDS
13 January 2015
The International Scientific Committee (CCI) of the Roque de los Muchachos (ORM, La Palma) and Teide (OT, Tenerife) observatories invites applications for International Time Programmes (ITP) on telescopes installed at these Observatories. Deadline is 28th February, 2015. More information: http://www.otri.iac.es/cci

Scientific news
ING SCHEDULES AND TIME ALLOCATIONS 2015A RELEASED
22 December 2014
> ING schedules and time allocations for semester 2015A are already available online.

Scientific news
ONE OF MOST ACCURATE MEASUREMENTS OF THE SIZE OF A TRANS-NEPTUNIAN OBJECT FROM A STELLAR OCCULTATION
15 December 2014    WHT (ULTRACAM)
Stellar occultations by minor bodies have been widely used to measure their sizes and constrain their shapes. One such event was observed at the William Herschel Telescope during the first hours of the night April 26, 2012 using ULTRACAM, a very fast camera able to obtain short exposures with very short overheads. They were able to measure a total eclipse duration of 20.87 seconds which translates into a chord of 41

Video release
A STELLAR ECLIPSE BY 2002 KX14
15 December 2014    WHT (ULTRACAM)
hanks to the high time resolution of ULTRACAM and the large aperture of the William Herschel Telescope, astronomers recorded the most accurate chord ever obtained for an occultation by a Trans-Neptunian Object (TNO), with a length of 415. This is a lower limit to the size of (119951) 2002 KX14 assuming it has a spherical shape.

Scientific news
ASTRONOMERS RELEASE MOST DETAILED CATALOGUE EVER MADE OF THE VISIBLE MILKY WAY
16 September 2014    INT (WFC)
The production of the catalogue, IPHAS DR2 (the second release from the survey programme The INT Photometric H-alpha Survey of the Northern Galactic Plan

Scientific news
CONFERENCE ON "MULTI-OBJECT SPECTROSCOPY IN THE NEXT DECADE"
15 September 2014
The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes is pleased to announce an international conference Multi-Object Spectroscopy in the Next Decade: Big Questions, Large Surveys and Wide Fields, to be held in Santa Cruz de La Palma, Canary Islands from 2nd to 6th March 2015.

Video release
THE INT EXPERIENCE BY AN OBSERVER
27 August 2014    INT

Statement
INSTRUMENTATION AT THE ING TELESCOPES - RESULTS OF A COMMUNITY POLL
21 August 2014    WHT+INT
Most users of the ING telescopes are well aware that our plans for the continued operation of the WHT and INT in the next decade call for the execution of massive spectroscopic surveys with WEAVE, a multi-fibre spectrograph now in construction for the WHT prime focus.

News release
INSTRUMENTATION AT THE ING TELESCOPES
21 August 2014
Most users of the ING telescopes are well aware that our plans for the continued operation of the WHT and INT in the next decade call for the execution of massive spectroscopic surveys with WEAVE, a multi-fibre spectrograph now in construction for the WHT prime focus. Until the arrival of WEAVE, planned for late-2017, ING will continue to offer a broad range of instrumentation at the WHT and on the INT.

Scientific news
CALL FOR LETTERS OF INTENT TO PROVIDE INSTRUMENTATION OR IMPROVEMENTS TO THE INT
21 August 2014
The Board of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes solicits Letters of Intent to provide new or improved instrumentation for the 2.5m Isaac Newton Telescope, and/or upgrades to the telescope infrastructure. Deadline 30 September 2014.

Image release
OU4: A GIANT SQUID NEBULA
20 August 2014    INT (WFC)
Ou4 is a recently discovered bipolar outflow with a projected size of more than one degree in the plane of the sky. It is apparently centred on a young stellar cluster - whose most massive representative is the triple system HR 8119 - inside the HII region Sh 2-129. The apparent position of Ou4 and the properties deduced in this study are consistent with the hypothesis that Ou4 is located inside the Sh 2-129 HII region, suggesting that it was launched some 90,000 yrs ago by HR 8119.

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2015A
11 August 2014
ING Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2015A

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO BE SUPPORTED VIA THE OPTICON TRANS-NATIONAL ACCESS PROGRAMME
7 August 2014
The OPTICON common TAC call for EU supported access to telescopes in semester 2015A has been opened. The announcement is here: http://www.astro-opticon.org/fp7-2/tna/opticon_call_new.html

Scientific news
RANDOM BITS, TRUE AND UNBIASED, FROM ATMOSPHERIC TURBULENCE
28 July 2014    JKT
Random numbers represent a fundamental ingredient for secure communications and numerical simulation as well as to games and in general to Information Science. Physical processes with intrinsic unpredictability may be exploited to generate genuine random numbers. The optical propagation in strong atmospheric turbulence is here taken to this purpose, by observing a laser beam after a 143 km free-space path, between the Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope on La Palma and the ESA Optical Ground Station at the Teide Observatory on Tenerife.

Scientific news
CONFERENCE ON "MULTI-OBJECT SPECTROSCOPY IN THE NEXT DECADE". FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT.
25 July 2014
The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes is pleased to announce an international conference Multi-Object Spectroscopy in the Next Decade: Big Questions, Large Surveys and Wide Fields, to be held in Santa Cruz de La Palma, Canary Islands from 2nd to 6th March 2015.

Scientific news
3D MAP SHOWS DUSTY STRUCTURE OF THE MILKY WAY
3 July 2014    INT (WFC)
A team of international astronomers has created a detailed three-dimensional map of the dusty structure of the Milky Way as seen from Eart

Scientific news
ING SCHEDULES AND TIME ALLOCATIONS 2014B RELEASED
2 July 2014
> ING schedules and time allocations for semester 2014B are already available online.

Scientific news
DISCOVERY OF NEAR EARTH ASTEROID 2014 LU14 WITH THE ISAAC NEWTON TELESCOPE
30 June 2014    INT (WFC)
2014 LU14 is the first ever Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) discovered using the Isaac Newton Telescope and from La Palma. This discovery is also the first reported by the EURONEAR network, a large collaboration founded by ING astronomer Ovidiu Vaduvescu which involves researchers and telescopes mostly based in European countries.

Scientific news
SPECTRO-ASTROMETRY OF V1515 CYGNI WITH ADAPTIVE OPTICS
13 June 2014    WHT (OASIS)
Using the integral field spectrograph OASIS, at the William Herschel Telescope, combined with the adaptive optics module NAOMI, astronomers obtained optical observations of the FU Ori star V1515 Cyg with an angular resolution of 0.7 arcseconds (Gaussian core FWHM). From the analysis of the data they find evidence for the existence of a surrounding disk in V1515, being this one of the few spatial inferences of a disk observed in an FU Ori object.

Scientific news
DISCOVERY OF CIRCULARLY POLARISED LIGHT IN A GRB AFTERGLOW
12 May 2014    WHT (ACAM)
A large international team led by Klaas Wiersema from the University of Leicester has discovered circularly polarised optical emission in the afterglow of GRB 121024A. The study, published in Nature, used data mainly from FORS2 on the VLT, but also ACAM on the WHT. The ACAM data allowed the team to correctly identify a break in the light curve that confirmed the long standing prediction that an abrupt change of 90 degrees in the GRB linear polarisation happens when the Lorentz factor of the outwards jet decreases below a critical value.

Image release
M82 GALAXY AND SUPERNOVA SN2014J
29 April 2014    WHT (ACAM)
On the 21st January 2014 astronomers reported the discovery of supernova SN2014J which reached its peak brightness on the 31st January. Some days later, this type Ia supernova started to fade. The image above demonstrates that SN2014J (marked with black lines) continued to be the brightest optical object in the galaxy even one month after the discovery.

Scientific news
ING STUDENTSHIP PROGRAMME: APPLICATIONS WELCOME
12 March 2014
We welcome applications for four places on the ING studentship programme 2014/15. The deadline for applications is Tuesday 1st April 2014

Scientific news
THE MUSIC OF THE GALAXIES
1 March 2014    WHT (GHaFaS)
Using Fabry-Perot optical interferometers, including GHaFaS on the William Herschel Telescope, and observing a sample of over a hundred nearby galaxies, astronomers have discovered that there are more density waves than predicted by theory, and that there are relations between them forming a complex pattern of resonances, which orchestrate the Music of the Galaxies.

Photo release;Web news
BBC'S SKY AT NIGHT AT ING
27 February 2014
The snappily-named Comet C/2012 S1 ISON travelled from the very edges of our solar system on a one way ticket around the sun. As it was heating up there was intense speculation about whether it would develop a beautiful tail or just break apart. In November 2013 a team of BBCs The Sky at Night used the Isaac Newton telescopes to go comet chasing. Video available at the BBC web site.

Scientific news
INSTRUMENT RATIONALISATION AT ING - COMMUNITY INPUT SOUGHT
27 February 2014
In order to focus the observatorys resources on the WEAVE project, ING is planning a rationalisation of its instrument suite, which will likely imply a progressive reduction in the number of common-user instruments/modes offered at the WHT and INT, starting in semester 2015A

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2014B
18 February 2014
ING Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2014B

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO BE SUPPORTED VIA THE OPTICON TRANS-NATIONAL ACCESS PROGRAMME
18 February 2014
The OPTICON common TAC call for EU supported access to telescopes in semester 2014B has been opened. The announcement is here: http://www.astro-opticon.org/fp7-2/tna/opticon_call_new.html

Scientific news
RATS-KEPLER - A DEEP HIGH-CADENCE SURVEY OF THE KEPLER FIELD
30 January 2014    INT (WFC)
Before the launch of Kepler, an extensive programme to identify bright G/K dwarfs with minimial stellar activity was carried out by various groups internationally. Although a small number of photometric variability surveys were carried out pre-launch they were either not especially deep, did not have wide sky coverage or did not have a cadence shorter than a few minutes. To fill this gap a team of astronomers started a photometric variability survey (RATS-Kepler) in the summer of 2011 using the Wide Field Camera (WFC) on the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT). RATS-Kepler is complementary to the Kepler-INT-Survey

Scientific news
EXTRA INT CALL FOR SEMESTER 2014A
14 January 2014
Extra INT call for semester 2014A. After reviewing the proposals for the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) it turned out that several nights are still available for Dutch astronomers. The time allocation committee has decided to offer a second chance for the Dutch astronomers to apply for these nights. Deadline

Scientific news
ING SCHEDULES AND TIME ALLOCATIONS SEMESTER 2014A RELEASED
9 January 2014
ING schedules and time allocations for semester 2014A already available online

Scientific news
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR
20 December 2013
The staff of the Isaac Newton Group wish you happy holidays and all the best for the new year.

Image release
PLANETARY NEBULA SH2-71
13 December 2013    INT (WFC)
The bipolar planetary nebula (PN) Sh2-71 lies in the constellation of Aquila at a distance of 1 kpc. It was discovered by Rudolph Minkowski in 1946. Shortly after the discovery, the central star (the brightest star in the centre of the nebula) was identified to be a variable with a quasi-sinusoidal lightcurve with an amplitude of 0.8 magnitudes. Later observations showed sharp brightness dips, possibly eclipses, with a period of 17.2 days. Besides an unusual lightcurve, it also exhibits pronounced spectral variations.

Image release
NGC 660 AND THE NEW RED+4 DETECTOR
4 December 2013    WHT (PFIP)
NGC 660 is a polar ring galaxy at a distance of about 43 million light years in the constellation of Pisces. Polar ring galaxies are named as such because a substantial proportion of the stellar population, gas and dust orbit the galaxy is placed in rings around the nucleus. These rings are thought to be created by interaction with a neighbouring galaxy.

Photo release;Web news
NEDERLAND 1 TV AT THE ING
2 December 2013    WHT
The Dutch TV channel Nederland 1 broadcasted a 13-minute item on exoplanets filmed on La Palma and at the ING on the 30th of November, 2013. It is an item for the general public (i.e. EenVandaag is not a programme focusing on science but on news issues) and to bring an enthusiastic story of young people focusing on astronomy. The bit about the William Herschel Telescope and ExPo extreme polarimeter starts just before half way through the broadcast. Video available at the Nederland 1 web site.

Scientific news
THE ISAAC NEWTON TELESCOPE CONTRIBUTES TO NEAR EARTH ASTEROID RESEARCH
29 October 2013    INT (WFC)
The Isaac Newton Telescope Contributes to Near Earth Asteroid Research. Two recently published papers on Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) demonstrate the increasing role of the Isaac Newton Telescope in precovering, recovering and discovering NEAs. A team of 23 young astronomers, working at ING or elsewhere, and amateur astronomers, led by ING astronomer Ovidiu Vaduvescu, mined several imaging archives, observed and analysed the data, and eventually became the authors of the papers

Image release
A COSMIC CATERPILLAR
2 October 2013    INT (WFC)
The caterpillar-shaped knot, called IRAS 20324+4057, is a protostar in a very early evolutionary stage. It is still in the process of collecting material from an envelope of gas surrounding it. However, that envelope is being eroded by the radiation from Cygnus OB2. Protostars in this region should eventually become young stars with final masses about one to ten times that of our Sun, but if the eroding radiation from the nearby bright stars destroys the gas envelope before the protostars finish accreting, the final masses of the protostars may be reduced. The object lies 4,500 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus.

Scientific news
WHT AND GTC FOLLOW UP MAIN BELT COMET P/2012 T1 (PANSTARRS)
5 September 2013    WHT (PFIP)
Some of the 11 known active asteroids originate in the main asteroid belt and thus are known as main belt comets (MBCs), one of the last discovered being P/2012 T1 (PANSTARRS). Thanks to the possibility of target-of-opportunity observations at the WHT and GTC, a team of Spanish astronomers followed up its evolution and revealed the origin of its cometary activity.

Photo release
CANARY'S LASER LAUNCH
30 August 2013    WHT (CANARY)
CANARY is an open-loop Adaptive Optics system deployed on the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope from July 2010. CANARY uses multiple laser guide stars and deformable mirrors and will be the instrument that provides the first on-sky test of combined wide-field LGS tomography and open-loop AO control. On-sky validation of these combined techniques will be performed with the goal of emulating a single channel of the proposed E-ELT MOAO instrument, EAGLE, albeit at 1/10th scale. The EAGLE webpages contain many examples of the type of science that could be performed with such an MOAO instrument on the E-ELT.

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2014A
19 August 2013
ING Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2014A

Scientific news
ING HOSTS THE 11TH NEON OBSERVING SCHOOL, 2013
17 July 2013
ING hosts the 11th NEON Observing School from July 14 to July 27, 2013. NEON stands for the Network of European Observatories in the North. The NEON Observing Schools are supported by OPTICON.

Scientific news
ING SCHEDULES AND TIME ALLOCATIONS SEMESTER 2013B RELEASED
20 June 2013
ING schedules and time allocations for semester 2013B already available online

Scientific news
THE RAPID ASSEMBLY OF AN ELLIPTICAL GALAXY AT A REDSHIFT OF 2.3
28 May 2013    WHT (LIRIS)
A rare encounter between two gas-rich galaxies indicates a solution to the problem of how giant elliptical galaxies developed so quickly in the early universe and why they stopped producing stars soon after.

Scientific news
DISCOVERY OF THE FIRST ISOLATED COMPACT ELLIPTICAL (CE) GALAXY
24 April 2013    WHT (ACAM)
Astronomers have used the ACAM instrument on the William Herschel Telescope in the discovery of a unique, isolated, compact elliptical galaxy.

Scientific news
A DUST-OBSCURED MASSIVE MAXIMUM-STARBURST GALAXY IN THE EARLY UNIVERSE
19 April 2013    WHT (ACAM, LIRIS)
Astronomers of the Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey (HerMES) project announce today in the journal Nature the discovery of an unsually massive, maximum-starburst galaxy at a redshift of 6.34, or when the Universe was only 880 million years old. Because current theories of galaxy fomation and evolution predict smaller galaxies with slower rates of star production in the early Universe, the detection of such a galaxy is challenging.

Image release
A NEW VIEW OF THE ELEPHANT'S TRUNK NEBULA
20 March 2013    INT (WFC)
The Elephants Trunk nebula, formally known as IC1396A, is a cloud of gas and dust located 2400 light years from Earth in the constellation Cepheus. The Elephant Trunk is part of a larger region of ionized gas illuminated by a nearby massive O-type star (located outside the image to the left). Radiation and winds from this hot star compress and ionize the edges of cloud, resulting in the bright ionization fronts seen in this image.

Video release
A TUMBLING SATELLITE
20 March 2013    INT
A Tumbling Satellite from Babak Tafreshi on Vimeo. The dome of the Isaac Newton Telescope appears in the foreground. Also available at The World at Night web site.

Video release
THE YOUNG MOON OVER LA PALMA
20 March 2013    WHT
The Young Moon over La Palma from Babak Tafreshi on Vimeo. The domes of the William Herschel and pt5m telescopes appear in the foreground.

Scientific news
THE 2013 CALL OF THE ING STUDENTSHIP PROGRAMME NOW OPEN
1 March 2013
The 2013 call of the ING Studentship Programme is open until the 7th of April

Scientific news
ACCRETION ON A VERY RAPIDLY SPINNING WHITE DWARF OBSERVED USING AN L3CCD
28 February 2013    WHT (ISIS)
Recent William Herschel Telescope observations have revealed a new view of the accretion process in V455 And, an intermediate polar with a very rapidly spinning white dwarf. This white dwarf, which is a star that is only as large as the Earth but about half as massive as the Sun, spins around its axis in just over one minute, and is the third fastest-spinning white dwarf known.

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2013B
18 February 2013
ING Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2013B

Scientific news
PROFESSOR VIKRAM DHILLON IS AWARDED THE 2013 RAS JACKSON-GWILT MEDAL FOR THE DEVELOPMENT AND OPERATION OF ULTRACAM
13 February 2013    WHT (ULTRACAM)
ULTRACAM is an ultra-fast, triple-beam CCD camera designed to study astrophysics on the fastest timescales. The instrument was built by a consortium involving the Universities of Sheffield (Vik Dhillon), Warwick (Tom Marsh) and the UK Astronomy Technology Centre, Edinburgh. It saw first light on the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope (WHT) on La Palma in 2002. The large quantity of observing time awarded to ULTRACAM (totalling one year of nights over the last decade) on some of the worlds largest telescopes is testament to the competitiveness of the science performed with the instrument.

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO BE SUPPORTED VIA THE OPTICON TRANS-NATIONAL ACCESS PROGRAMME
7 February 2013
The OPTICON common TAC call for EU supported access to telescopes in semester 2013B has been opened. It will close at exactly 23:59 UT on 28th February 2013. The announcement is here: http://www.astro-opticon.org/fp7/tna/opticon_call_new.html

Scientific news
PROBING NUCLEAR ACTIVITY VERSUS STAR FORMATION USING NEAR-INFRARED MULTI-OBJECT SPECTROSCOPY
4 February 2013    WHT (LIRIS)
The role of active galactic nuclei (AGN) in the formation and evolution of galaxies is still not well established. Some authors claim that AGN are key in quenching star formation in their host galaxies through so-called AGN feedback, which has been invoked to explain the well-established correlations between supermassive-black-hole (SMBH) mass and host-galaxy properties. In order to understand the importance of AGN feedback in the star-formation histories of galaxies, it is necessary to study how the star formation rate (SFR) in active galaxies evolves with redshift.

Scientific news
SAURON TEAM GETS THE 2013 GROUP ACHIEVEMENT AWARD OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
25 January 2013    WHT (SAURON)
On Friday 11 January 2013 the Royal Astronomical Society (UK) awarded the 2013 RAS Group award to the SAURON team. SAURON is an integral field spectrograph with a 33 x 44 arcseconds field of view at the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope. Although it can be used for other astrophysical investigations, the particular science focus of the team that set up the SAURON project was understanding the evolution of elliptical galaxies, via detailed observations of samples of nearby examples of these objects.

Scientific news
IMAGING POLARIMETRY OF CIRCUMSTELLAR ENVIRONMENTS WITH EXPO
25 December 2012    WHT (ExPo)
A team of Dutch astronomers designed and built the innovative imaging polarimeter ExPo (the Extreme Polarimeter), which is a regular visitor instrument at the William Herschel Telescope (WHT). ExPo makes use of polarised light to study the faint, dust-rich environments around young and evolved stars.

Scientific news
A HYPERGIANT STAR (PARTIALLY) TRAVERSING THE YELLOW EVOLUTIONARY VOID
25 December 2012    WHT (UES)
After thirty years of investigation, a team of scientists from six European countries reports that the hypergiant star HR 8752 is partially traversing the Yellow Evolutionary Void, an area in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram empty of hypergiant stars with surface temperatures between 5000 and 12000 degrees kelvin. Some of the observations were carried out using the Utrecht Echelle Spectrograph (UES, now retired) on the William Herschel Telescope.

Scientific news
FIRST EVIDENCE OF THE RELATION BETWEEN JETS IN PLANETARY NEBULAE AND MASS TRANSFER AND ACCRETION IN CLOSE BINARIES
12 December 2012    WHT (ACAM)
The formation of asymmetric structures such as rings and jets in planetary nebulae (PNe) has been a matter of debate for a long time. The most popular hypothesis is that these features are produced in interacting binaries. Using data obtained with ACAM imager and spectrograph on the William Herschel Telescope, for the first time astronomers have been able to reliably relate jet ejections to mass transfer and accretion in a close binary in a planetary nebula.

Scientific news
A 3D VIEW OF THE REMNANT OF NOVA PERSEI 1901
11 December 2012
GK Per (Nova Persei 1901) nova remnant is the result of a remarkable nearby nova exploded in 1901 which reached the brightness of the star Vega at its maximum. It was the first object around which, superluminal light echoes where observed. The actual ejecta of the outburst became visible 15 years later in 1916. Ever since, the ejecta has been monitored in several wavelengths in narrow- and broad-band filters. This study shows that the nova ejecta is a thick knotty shell in which knots expand with a significant range of velocities. A movie shows the evolution of the remnant from 1953 to 2011 using data mainly from the INT/WFC and INT/IDS.

Scientific news
THE COLD VEIL OF THE MILKY WAY STELLAR HALO
21 September 2012    WHT (ISIS)
Astronomers at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge (UK) have reported the discovery of a cold veil of halo stars in the very outskirts of the Milky Way. They obtained the radial velocities of a sample of distant halo stars located from 80 to 150 kiloparsecs from the center of our Galaxy using the ISIS spectrograph on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), among others. The two most distant stars in this sample are Carbon stars observed with WHT/ISIS, and to date, they are the most distant field Galactic halo stars with radial-velocity measurements.

Scientific news
QUANTUM TELEPORTATION EXPERIMENT SETS A NEW RECORD
20 September 2012    JKT
Physicists at the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences have successfully transmitted quantum states between La Palma (from the Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope) and Tenerife, over a record distance of 143 km. This experiment provides the basis for a worldwide information network, in which quantum mechanical effects enable the exchange of messages with greater security, and allow certain calculations to be performed more efficiently than with conventional technologies. In such a future quantum internet, quantum teleportation will be a key protocol for the transmission of information between quantum computers.

Scientific news
LIGHT YEARS EXHIBITION
18 September 2012
Light Years exhibition is a journey into the memory of the universe. A memory that begins in the stars and is gathered inside the elemental particles that make up matter. It is a hymn to the complexity of the light that creates life in its path. It is an opportunity to remember that everything in existence was once nothing but star dust. The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes has collaborated in this exhibition.

Scientific news
THE TRANSITING EARTH
12 September 2012    WHT (LIRIS)
From spectra collected during the August 2008 lunar eclipse, astronomers have been able to investigate the in-transit signature of the Earth-Sun system as would be observed from outside the solar system. They found that the refraction of sunlight as it passes through a planetary atmosphere similar to the Earths contributes prominently to the in-transit transmission spectrum. This research has important implications for future attempts to characterise the atmospheres of Earth-like extrasolar planets, especially those in similar long-period orbits.

Scientific news
ING USER INPUT SOUGHT FOR THE STFC PROGRAMMATIC REVIEW
28 August 2012
As part of its Programmatic Review, the UK funding agency STFC seeks input from facility users on science and facility priorities, including the ING

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2013A
14 August 2012
ING Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2013A

Scientific news
THE NATURE OF THE DRIVING SOURCE OF THE HH30 JET/COUNTERJET SYSTEM
13 August 2012    WHT (ACAM)
The Herbig-Haro object 30 (HH30) is located in the L1551 dark cloud, at a distance of about 140 parsec, in the Taurus star-forming region. HH30 is considered a prototypical jet-disk system driven by a young stellar object (YSO). The impressive jet/counterjet structure extends several arcminutes in both directions from the exciting source, and shows an undulating morphology in the narrow-band [SII] images. Astronomers using ACAM at the William Herschel Telescope have been able to obtain a deep image of the HH30 field and have found an interesting explanation for the jet/counterjet system

Scientific news
THE KEPLER-INT SURVEY
9 August 2012    INT (WFC)
The Kepler-INT Survey is a deep 5-filter optical survey of the Kepler field, made with the Wide Field Camera on the Isaac Newton Telescope. The observing strategy and data reduction method are identical with those used in the IPHAS and UVEX galactic plane surveys and involves scientists from all ING partner communities.

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO BE SUPPORTED VIA THE OPTICON TRANS-NATIONAL ACCESS PROGRAMME
2 August 2012
The OPTICON common TAC call for EU supported access to telescopes in semester 2013A has been opened. It will close at exactly 1200 UT on 2nd September 2012. The announcement is here: http://www.astro-opticon.org/fp7/tna/opticon_call_new.html

Scientific news
JOB OPPORTUNITY: OPTICAL ENGINEER
27 July 2012
Please note that a job advert has been posted: Optical Engineer, ref.: LSR02_12. Closing date 30/09/12

Scientific news
WORKSHOP: LA PALMA AND CALAR ALTO OBSERVATORIES, SCIENCE IN THE NEXT DECADE
13 July 2012
Contributions from workshop: La Palma and Calar Alto Observatories, Science in the Next Decade (Madrid, 22-23 March 2012) already available

Scientific news
MASGOMAS-1: A VERY MASSIVE STELLAR CLUSTER
23 May 2012    WHT (LIRIS)
A group of astronomers from the IAC and CEFCA have reported the discovery of a massive stellar cluster in the Milky Way. The discovery is part of the MASGOMAS project (MAssive Stars in Galactic Obscured MAssive clusterS), a systematic search for massive galactic stellar clusters. The massive nature of the cluster has been confirmed using LIRIS imaging, and long-slit and multi-object spectroscopy, on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT).

Scientific news
THE WORLDS GREATEST TELESCOPES
18 May 2012
The William Herschel Telescope takes pride of place on the front cover of Astronomy magazines special summer 2012 issue. This issue is a picture-packed guided tour of the worlds major observatories, highlighting the beauty of the locations as much as the scientific achievements. It includes an article about the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma, written by ING staff Chris Benn, Javier

Image release
NGC 2359 NEBULA
8 May 2012    INT (WFC)
This is an image of NGC 2359, better known as the Thors Helmet nebula, obtained using the Wide-Field Camera on the Isaac Newton Telescope. NGC 2359 is actually more like an interstellar bubble, blown as a fast wind from the bright, massive star near the bubbles center sweeps through a surrounding molecular cloud. The central star is an extremely hot giant Wolf-Rayet star thought to be in a brief, pre-supernova stage of evolution.

Scientific news
ASTRONOMY FIELD TRIP BY UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD STUDENTS
27 April 2012
A group of 8 Sheffield MPhys students visited La Palma for one week to undertake their third-year astronomy project using pt5m, the Durham-Sheffield 0.5m robotic telescope on the roof of the WHT. The trip, which was led by Professor Vik Dhillon, was a great success and will hopefully now be an annual fixture in the Sheffield Astrophysics MPhys degree programme.

Scientific news
UNDER THE DARK HALO OLD GALAXIES HAVE MANY MORE STARS
26 April 2012    WHT (SAURON)
Astronomers from the Atlas3D team, using the SAURON integral-field spectrograph on the William Herschel Telescope, have found that some of the oldest galaxies in the Universe have three times as much stellar mass, and as many more stars, than all current models of galaxy evolution predict. This result means that the models, which assumed for decades that the light we observe from a galaxy can be used to infer its stellar mass, will have to be revised. A report of the research is published in Nature on 26 April 2012.

Image release
IC 1396 NEBULA
16 March 2012    INT (WFC)
IC 1396 in the constellation Cepheus imaged in the red light from hydrogen atoms. This image was obtained as part of the INT/WFC Photometric Hydrogen-Alpha Survey of the Northern Galactic Plane (IPHAS). Credit: Geert Barentsen & Jorick Vink (Armagh Observatory) & the IPHAS Collaboration.

Scientific news
RIDING THE WAKE OF A MERGING GALAXY CLUSTER
10 March 2012    WHT (OASIS)
Observations using the OASIS integral field spectrograph on the William Herschel Telescope have revealed a long, thin plume of ionised gas stretching out from the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG) of Abell 2146 (z=0.243) (Canning et al. 2012). Extended optical emission-line nebulae are not uncommon in the cores of clusters, but the discovery of this particular structure is unexpected, as the host cluster is in the throes of a major merger event

Scientific news
THE 2012 CALL OF THE ING STUDENTSHIP PROGRAMME NOW OPEN
21 February 2012
The 2012 call of the ING Studentship Programme is now open. Deadline is the 6th of April

News release
ING SCIENCE STRATEGY 2013 - 2022 RELEASED
13 February 2012    WHT+INT
A consensus has emerged amongst the partner countries that the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING) will play a crucial role in the partners national astronomy programmes over the next decade. At the ING, we have worked closely with our user communities from the UK, the Netherlands and Spain, and with our funding agencies (STFC, NWO and IAC), to agree on the scientific priorities and how to deliver them.

Scientific news
WORKSHOP: LA PALMA AND CALAR ALTO OBSERVATORIES, SCIENCE IN THE NEXT DECADE
13 February 2012
Upcoming workshop: "La Palma and Calar Alto Observatories, Science in the Next Decade" (Madrid, 22-23 March 2012).We announce a two-day workshop organised by ING together with our colleaguesat the Calar Alto Observatory. Registration deadline: 5 March (with presentation), 15 March (without)

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2012B
10 February 2012
ING Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2012B

Scientific news
INPUT FROM UK USERS SOUGHT FOR STFC SCIENCE BOARD REVIEW
10 February 2012
INGs plans for the coming decade were presented to STFC Science Board in November 2011. In order to reach a decision by April 2012, Science Board set up a sub-group to examine our proposal (and that presented for JCMT and UKIRT). STFCs announcement is at http://www.stfc.ac.uk/About+STFC/38392.aspx . The deadline for submission of your inputs is 22 February 2012.

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE CCIS INTERNATIONAL TIME PROGRAMME ON THE CANARY ISLANDS
9 February 2012
The International Scientific Committee (CCI) of the Roque de los Muchachos (ORM, La Palma) and Teide (OT, Tenerife) observatories invites applications for International Time Programmes (ITP) on telescopes installed at these Observatories. Deadline is 28th February, 2013. More information: http://www.otri.iac.es/cci

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO BE SUPPORTED VIA THE OPTICON TRANS-NATIONAL ACCESS PROGRAMME
31 January 2012
The call for observing time at night time telescopes supported by the OPTICON Trans-National Access Programme is now open with a deadline of 12:00 UT on 29 February 2012

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE CCIS INTERNATIONAL TIME PROGRAMME ON THE CANARY ISLANDS
20 January 2012
The International Scientific Committee (CCI) of the Roque de los Muchachos (ORM, La Palma) and Teide (OT, Tenerife) observatories invites applications for International Time Programmes (ITP) on telescopes installed at these Observatories. Deadline is 29th February, 2012. More information: http://www.iac.es/eno.php?op1=5&op2=13&op3=26&lang=e

Scientific news
CALL FOR SERVICE PROPOSALS WITH WHT/ULTRACAM
28 December 2011
The ING is pleased to announce a special call for service proposals to use the ULTRACAM instrument. Up to five bright nights are available at the beginning of February 2012. ULTRACAM is a high-speed, three channel CCD camera ideally suited for fast photometry. Please see the details of the announcement, including a description of ULTRACAM and the proposal submission procedure, at http://www.ing.iac.es/astronomy/observing/ULTRACAM.pdf. The deadline for receipt of proposals is midnight on Friday 20th January, Canarian/UK time.

Scientific news
BEST WISHES FROM LA PALMA!
20 December 2011
The staff of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Scientific news
JKT ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY
10 October 2011
The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) of the United Kingdom announces its intention to make the Jakobus Kapteyn Telescope (JKT) available free of charge to a suitable party who is interested in taking control of the scientific exploitation of the telescope.

Scientific news
THE ING TELESCOPES CONTRIBUTE TO THE 2011 NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS
4 October 2011
The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING) contributed data to the research which led to the award of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics to Professor Saul Perlmutter of UC-Berkeley. Using wide-field imaging techniques implemented on the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) in the early nineties, and subsequent imaging and spectroscopy using the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), among others, the Supernova Cosmology Project team led by Perlmutter discovered that the expansion of the Universe, long-believed to be decelerating due to the effects of gravitational attraction, was in fact accelerating, that is, galaxies are receding from one another faster now than they were billions of years ago. This result provided the foundation for the current, widely-accepted model of the Universe, in which the dynamics are dominated by what is called dark energy.

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO BE SUPPORTED VIA THE OPTICON TRANS-NATIONAL ACCESS PROGRAMME
25 August 2011
The call for observing time at night time telescopes supported by the OPTICON Trans-National Access Programme is now open with a deadline of 12:00 UT on 31 August 2011

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2012A
12 August 2011
ING Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2012A

Scientific news
THE ATLAS3D PROJECT: REPLACING THE HANDLE OF HUBBLE
20 June 2011    WHT (SAURON)
Since Edwin Hubble introduced his famous tuning fork diagram more than 70 years ago, spiral galaxies and early-type galaxies have been regarded as being two distinct families. A known issue of Hubbl

Scientific news
DISCOVERY OF A NEW CLASS OF SUPERNOVAE
9 June 2011    WHT (ISIS)
Astronomers have identified a new type of supernova or exploding star which is ten times brighter than any other type of stellar explosion.

Scientific news
UK PARLIAMENTARY INQUIRY INTO ASTRONOMY - REPORT NOW AVAILABLE
6 June 2011
The report of the UK parliamentary Science and Technology Committee inquiry into astronomy and particle-physics research in the UK is now publicly available

News release
WIDE-FIELD MULTI-OBJECT SPECTROGRAPH WEAVE PROPOSED FOR WHT PRIME FOCUS
29 May 2011    WHT (WEAVE)
ING is establishing a European consortium to develop a spectrograph, WEAVE, for the prime focus of the William Herschel Telescope. WEAVE will be able to take spectra of up to 1000 objects simultaneously, within a 2-deg field of view. First light is envisioned in 2016.

Scientific news
ING JOINS EFFORTS WITH GTC TO DISCOVER A GALACTIC BLACK HOLE
25 April 2011    WHT (ACAM)
XTE J1859+226 is a transient X-ray binary discovered in 1999 by the X-ray satellite RXTE. This type of binary system stays in quiescence for most of its life; however, from time-to-time the system can show an outburst at all wavelengths which can subsequently be detected by X-ray satellites. By combining the data taken using the INT and the WHT in 2000 with the photometry taken in 2008 with NOT, WHT and spectra from GTC, a lower limit to the mass of the black hole was set to 5.42 solar masses

Scientific news
GALAXY ZOO SUPERNOVAE AND THE WHT
11 April 2011
Galaxy Zoo Supernovae (GZS) is a proof-of-concept project which uses members of the public to identify supernova candidates from the latest generation of wide-field imaging transient surveys. GZS was first tested on two specific occasions supporting Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) spectroscopic follow-up observations at the William Herschel Telescope, in 2009 August and October. 16 of 20 candidates were observed by the WHT; 15 were confirmed as SNe, with one cataclysmic variable. Since 2010 April, GZS has been running full-time on PTF candidates and by 2010 July 15 had classified around 13,900 SN candidates at the rate of several hundred candidates per observing night. SGZ team members continue to use the WHT to confirm and follow up the SN candidates being discovered

Scientific news
CALL FOR INT SUPPORT AND STUDENTSHIP APPLICATIONS
7 March 2011
The INT Support and Research Studentship programme offers astronomy and astrophysics Ph.D. students the unique opportunity to spend one year at the ING as support astronomers at the INT. The students are expected to continue with their Ph.D. theses while working at ING. Students will get astronomy related project work from ING. In addition, they can get involved in further research with ING staff astronomers. Ph.D. students working in any field of observational astronomy are welcome. Deadline for applications is April 7th, 2011.

Scientific news
FINAL JOURNEY FOR INGS FORMER TAXI DRIVER, LIONEL
22 February 2011
We regret to announce that Lionel passed away last Friday, 18th March. For more than 20 years, Lionel was the usual taxi driver for visitors to INGs telescopes, and many astronomers around the world will remember him with affection. We will all miss him

Image release
THE CIGAR GALAXY
21 February 2011    WHT (ACAM)
Image of the Cigar Galaxy or M82 obtained using ACAM on the William Herschel Telescope. Credit: Pablo Rodr

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2011B
15 February 2011
ING Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2011B

Web news
UK PARLIAMENTARY INQUIRY INTO ASTRONOMY
7 February 2011
The UK parliamentary Science and Technology Committee has launched an inquiry into astronomy and particle-physics research in the UK. The parliamentary committee invites comments, by February 16th

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO BE SUPPORTED VIA THE OPTICON TRANS-NATIONAL ACCESS PROGRAMME
3 February 2011
The call for observing time at night time telescopes supported by the OPTICON Trans-National Access Programme is now open with a deadline of 12:00 UT on 28 February 2011

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE CCIS INTERNATIONAL TIME PROGRAMME ON THE CANARY ISLANDS
25 January 2011
The International Scientific Committee (CCI) of the Roque de los Muchachos (ORM, La Palma) and Teide (OT, Tenerife) observatories invites applications for International Time Programmes (ITP) on telescopes installed at these Observatories. Deadline is 28th February, 2011. More information: http://www.iac.es/eno.php?op1=5&op2=13&op3=26&lang=e

Image release
THE CAT
24 January 2011    INT (WFC)
Image acquired using the Wide Field Camera on the Isaac Newton Telescope of the Cats Eye Nebula, or NGC 6543. Credit: D. L

Scientific news
CANARY: FIRST ON-SKY DEMONSTRATION OF MULTI-OBJECT ADAPTIVE OPTICS
29 December 2010    WHT (CANARY)
A Franco-British team has demonstrated for the first time on-sky the feasibility of so-called Multi-Object Adaptive Optics (MOAO). MOAO provides the high spatial resolution delivered by current adaptive-optics systems, but over a much larger field of view, allowing many objects to be observed simultaneously. The demonstration was made with the purpose-built CANARY instrument installed at the Nasmyth focus of the William Herschel Telescope on La Palma. Analysis of the first results obtained in September 2010 shows that CANARY delivered the expected performance the first time it was used - a spectacular success.

Image release
THE VEIL NEBULA
27 December 2010    INT (WFC)
This image is part of the Eastern Veil Nebula, or NGC 6992, and it was obtained using the Wide Field Camera on the Isaac Newton Telescope. It is a three-colour composite made from data collected using filters to isolate the light emitted by hydrogen alpha (H-alpha), doubly ionised oxygen (OIII) and ionised sulfur (SII) atoms, and coded in the image as red, green and blue respectively. Credit: D. L

Scientific news
PLC TECHNOLOGY REDUCES OBSERVING OVERHEADS
19 November 2010    WHT
New control systems are being implemented for all the instruments on the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope. The new systems are based on PLC (programmable logic controllers) and Ethernet technology, and are faster, and much easier to maintain, than the old 4MS/RS232 systems originally implemented at the telescope over 20 years ago. The re-engineering is all being carried out in-house at ING

Image release
THE CRESCENT NEBULA
30 October 2010    INT (WFC)
This image of the Crescent Nebula or NGC 6888 was obtained using the Wide Field Camera on the Isaac Newton Telescope. It is a three-colour composite made from data collected using filters to isolate the light emitted by hydrogen alpha (H-alpha) and doubly ionised oxygen (OIII) atoms

Scientific news
ELECTRON-MULTIPLYING CCDS AT ING
27 October 2010    WHT (ISIS)
Conventional CCD detectors have two major disadvantages: they are slow to read out and they suffer from read noise. These problems combine to make high-speed spectroscopy of faint targets the most demanding of astronomical observations. It is possible to overcome these weaknesses by using electron-multiplying CCDs (EMCCDs). EMCCDs are conventional frame-transfer CCDs, but with an extended serial register containing high-voltage electrodes. The recently released ING technical note no. 132 summarises the research and the implementation of EMCCDs at ING

Video release;Outreach event
VISITING THE 4.2 METER WILLIAM HERSCHEL TELESCOPE
12 October 2010    WHT
Visiting the 4.2 meter William Herschel Telescope on La Palma with the astronomy master students of Leuven (BEL) and Amsterdam (NED). Credit: Peter I Papic.


Image release
THE RING NEBULA
25 August 2010    INT (WFC)
This image of the Ring Nebula or Messier 57 was obtained using the Wide Field Camera on the Isaac Newton Telescope. It is a three-colour composite made from data collected using filters to isolate the light emitted by hydrogen alpha (H-alpha), doubly ionised oxygen (OIII) and ionised sulfur (SII) atoms

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2011A
14 August 2010
ING Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2011A

Scientific news;Press release
ING ASTRONOMER AWARDED PUBLIC OUTREACH PRIZE
30 July 2010
ING support astronomer Miguel Santander has been awarded a public outreach prize for his story Ella siempre lo supo.

Scientific news
COMET P/2010 A2, AN ACTIVATED ASTEROID FROM THE MAIN ASTEROID BELT
23 July 2010    WHT (ACAM)
Comet-like object P/2010 A2 was discovered by the LINEAR survey on January 6, 2010. Service observations carried out using ACAM on the William Herschel Telescope on January 21, 2010, show an asteroidal nucleus detached from the dust tail. Owing to its orbital parameters and its cometary appearance, the object is classified as a main-belt comet, in other words, an activated asteroid from the main asteroid belt. Comet P/2010 A2s orbit is the nearest to the Sun known so far, for this kind of object (semi-major axis of 2.29 AU)

Scientific news
SUPER-COMPLEX ORGANIC MOLECULES FOUND IN INTERSTELLAR SPACE
21 June 2010    WHT
A team of scientists from the Instituto Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) and the University of Texas using the WHT and HET has succeeded in identifying one of the most complex organic molecules yet found in the material between the stars, the so-called interstellar medium. The discovery of anthracene could help resolve a decades-old astrophysical mystery concerning the production of organic molecules in space

Scientific news
ING SUPPORT AND STUDENTSHIP PROGRAMME
26 February 2010
The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes offers astronomy PhD students theopportunity to work for one year (starting September) as supportastronomers at the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope at the Roque de losMuchachos observatory on La Palma, while continuing work on their PhDs.

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS FOR OBSERVING TIME IN 2010B
3 February 2010
Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2010B: August 1, 2010 - January 31, 2011.

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE OPTICON TRANS-NATIONAL ACCESS PROGRAMME IN 2010B
3 February 2010
Within the OPTICON contract under FP7, its Trans-National Access programme will move towards even greater integration and coordination of the participating telescopes. As part of this move, the funding for the programme will be pooled, and the proposals for OPTICON time at all the telescopes will be reviewed together by a single international Time Allocation Committee (TAC) to ensure network-wide competition and uniform review criteria

Scientific news
WORKSHOP ON SCIENCE WITH THE WILLIAM HERSCHEL TELESCOPE 2010-2020
3 February 2010    WHT
Bringing together astronomers from the ING communities to discuss scientific applications and instrument development plans for the WHT in the coming decade.

News release
ING STRATEGIC VISION FOR THE COMING DECADE
27 January 2010    WHT+INT
Our strategic vision of the WHT for the next decade is that of a telescope that operates a range of instruments offered for classical observing on a large fraction of the year, while we increase the time devoted to surveys with key instruments with strategic importance to our communities - instruments where a 4m telescope delivers more science than larger telescopes.

Scientific news
CALL FOR PROPOSALS TO THE CCIS INTERNATIONAL TIME PROGRAMME ON THE CANARY ISLANDS
14 January 2010
The International Scientific Committee (CCI) of the Roque de los Muchachos (ORM, La Palma) and Teide (OT, Tenerife) observatories invites applications for International Time Programmes (ITP) on telescopes installed at these Observatories. Deadline is 28th February, 2010. More information: http://www.iac.es/eno.php?op1=5&op2=13&op3=26&lang=e

Scientific news
INGS POSITION STATEMENT ON STFCS 16 DECEMBER PRESS RELEASE
18 December 2009
The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING) are pleased to note that the announcement made by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) on December 16th, 2009, clarifies the continued role of STFC as owner and manager of the ING until the expiration of the International Agreements for the Canarian Observatories. These agreements are for renewal in 2012

Scientific news
THE PINWHEEL GALAXY
23 September 2009
This fantastic image of the Pinwheel Galaxy was obtained using the Wide Field Camera on the Isaac Newton Telescope. I

Scientific news
UN SORTEO ESTELAR
15 August 2009
The institutions present at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (IAC) help to collect funds to help those affected by recent fire in the South of La Palma. The prize will be an observing night on the JKT, using the finder and the naked eye.

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2010A
7 August 2009
Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2010A: February 1, 2010 - July 31, 2010

Scientific news
FIRST LIGHT FOR ACAM - THE WHTS NEW IMAGER / SPECTROGRAPH
16 July 2009    WHT (ACAM)
A versatile new high-throughput imager and spectrograph, ACAM, was successfully commissioned on the William Herschel Telescope in June 2009, and is now available for use by the astronomical community.

Scientific news
NEW DIRECTOR FOR ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES
14 July 2009
Dr Marc Balcells, a tenured researcher at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, has been appointed Director of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes. He will begin his new role with effect from 15 July 2009.

Scientific news
EARTHS TRANSMISSION SPECTRUM FROM LUNAR ECLIPSE OBSERVATIONS
12 July 2009    WHT (LIRIS)
As we get closer to finding analogues of Earth, an important consideration for the characterization of extrasolar planetary atmospheres is what the transmission spectrum of our planet looks like. Recently a team of astronomers, using LIRIS on the William Herschel Telescope and ALFOSC on the Nordic Optical Telescope simultaneously, have been able to obtain for the first time the optical and near-infrared transmission spectrum of the Earth during a lunar eclipse.

Scientific news
FIRST SPECTROSCOPIC OBSERVATIONS USING AN ELECTRON-MULTIPLYING CCD
10 June 2009    WHT (ISIS+QUCAM)
Astronomers at the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING) have recently used, for the first ever time, an electron-multiplying detector for astronomical spectroscopic observations, allowing a high-time resolution analysis of the orbital motion of a short orbital period cataclysmic variable.

Scientific news
EUROPEAN TELESCOPE STRATEGY REVIEW
10 June 2009
The ASTRONET Science Vision and Infrastructures Roadmaps concluded that there is an urgent need to define a strategy for 2-4m telescopes at the European Level.Vital community input is now sought via a web based tool created for the purpose. The main consultation period begins now and continues until the end of July.

Scientific news
NEAR-UNIVERSE ADVISORY PANEL CONSULTATION PROCESS
25 May 2009
The Near Universe Advisory Panel (NUAP) is one of five advisory panels to the STFCs Science Committee for Particle Physics, Astronomy and Nuclear Physics. NUAP is inviting the community to take part in a web-based consultation to help it develop a roadmap with the current and future research opportunities.

Scientific news
SUPPORT AND RESEARCH STUDENTSHIP PROGRAMME
22 May 2009
The INT Support and Research Studentship programme offers astronomy and astrophysics Ph.D. students the unique opportunity to spend one year at the ING as support astronomers at the INT. The students can continue with their Ph.D. theses while working at ING. In addition, they can get involved in further research with ING staff astronomers. Ph.D. students working in any field of observational astronomy are welcome.

Scientific news
FIRST EVER SPECTRUM OF AN ASTEROID WHICH HIT THE EARTH
26 March 2009    WHT (ISIS)
Having less than 24 hours in which to act, astronomers using the William Herschel Telescope have been able to obtain the only spectrum of an asteroid which hit the Earth, establishing the first direct link between an asteroid and a meteorite.

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2009B
26 February 2009
Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2009B: August 1, 2009 - January 31, 2010.

Scientific news
CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL OBSERVING TIME ON THE CANARY ISLANDS
26 February 2009
The International Scientific Committee (CCI) of the Roque de los Muchachos (ORM,La Palma) and Teide (OT, Tenerife) observatories invites applications for InternationalTime Programmes (ITP) in semesters 2009B and 2010A on telescopes installed at these Observatories.

Scientific news
PLANETPOLS DISCOVERY COULD IMPACT ON FUTURE CLIMATE MODELS
12 February 2009
Astronomers have made an unexpected find using PlanetPol on the William Herschel Telescope, that has the potential to affect future climate models. University of Hertfordshire astronomers were making observations of the stars in search of new planets, when their measurements became affected by a layer of dust. Scientists normally assume that aerosols, including mineral dust, have random orientation in the atmosphere, but the team members say the polarizing affect the dust was having on the light could only be the result of dust particles being vertically aligned.

Scientific news
FIRST GROUND-BASED NEAR-INFRARED DIRECT DETECTION OF AN EXTRASOLAR PLANET
14 January 2009    WHT (LIRIS)
The WHT makes the first ever ground-based near-infrared detection of an extrasolar planet. TrES-3b, as it is called, is just a little larger than Jupiter, yet orbits around its parent star much closer than Mercury does, making it a "hot jupiter". As the planet disappears behind the star, the light coming from the whole system decreases because of the absence of the planets light, allowing astronomers precise measurements of the light emitted by the planet. This way of detecting direct light coming from an extrasolar planet is also referred as the secondary eclipse method.

Outreach event
THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF ASTRONOMY 2009 AND THE ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES
1 January 2009
The International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009) was a global celebration of astronomy and its contributions to society and culture, highlighted by the 400th anniversary of the first use of an astronomical telescope by Galileo Galilei. The aim of the Year was to stimulate worldwide interest, especially among young people, in astronomy and science under the central theme The Universe, Yours to Discover.

Scientific news
ASTRONET INFRASTRUCTURE ROADMAP RELEASED
28 November 2008
The ASTRONET Infrastructure Roadmap: A Strategic Plan for European Reseachy, has just been released.

Scientific news
DETECTION OF NAPHTALENE CATION IN THE INTERESTELLAR MEDIUM
1 November 2008    WHT (ISIS)
A team of astronomers has reported the first evidence for the presence of naphthalene cation in a region of the interestellar medium. This identification adds support to the hypothesis that this type of molecules could play an important role in the formation of prebiotic molecules present in the protoplanetary material

Scientific news
IYA2009 AND THE ING
30 October 2008
The International Year of Astronomy 2009 will be a global celebration of astronomy and ING will be there.

Scientific news
CHRISTMAS E-CARD COMPETITION
30 October 2008
This first STFC e-Christmas card competition is open to school children within the 11-16 age group across the UK. The winners will be awarded with a trip to La Palma and a visit to the ING telescopes.

Scientific news
THE UNIVERSE SHINES TWICE AS BRIGHT
18 August 2008    INT (WFC)
Using the Millenium Galaxy Catalogue, compiled with data obtained with the Isaac Newton Telescope, astronomers have calculated that the Universe is actually twice as bright as previously thought. In the latest Astrophysical Journal Letters (10th May), the astronomers describe how dust is obscuring approximately half of the light that the Universe is currently generating.

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2009A
18 August 2008
Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2009A: February 1, 2009 - July 31, 2009.

Scientific news
ING WILL HOST THE 7TH NEON OBSERVING SCHOOL, 2008
23 June 2008
The ING will host the 7th NEON Observing School from June 23 to July 05, 2008. NEON stands for the Network of European Observatories in the North and the NEON Observing Schools are supported by OPTICON and the European Astronomical Society (EAS). The aim of the NEON summer schools is to provide the opportunity for young researchers to gain practical experience in observational techniques, data reduction and analysis and the use of virtual observatory tools.

Scientific news
AN ASTRO-COMB FOR THE WHT WITH A PRECISION OF 1 CMS-1
28 April 2008    WHT (HARPS)
An astro-comb is an optically filtered comb of evenly spaced frequency references, all derived from a single frequency source

Scientific news
EVIDENCE FOR AN EXTRASOLAR PLANET AROUND CM DRAC FROM BINARY STELLAR ECLIPSE TIMING
23 March 2008    INT (WFC)
Evidence for the detection of a third body orbiting around the eclipsing binary CM Draconis has been obtained using binary stellar eclipse timing method for the first time. Although binary or multiple stars are very frequent in our Galaxy, to date no unambiguously circumbinary planets had been detected.

Scientific news
A WIDE COMPANION NEAR THE DEUTERIUM MASS LIMIT
23 March 2008    WHT (ISIS+AUX)
A team of Spanish astronomers has identified a stellar companion near the deuterium-burning mass limit located at a very wide distance, or 670 astronomical units, from the brown dwarf UScoCTIO 108 in the very young Upper Scorpius association. Although other substellar pairs with similar mass ratio are known, the system UScoCTIO 108A and B is the widest identified so far and possibly has a lower gravitational bound energy than any other known low-mass binary.

Scientific news
DIFFUSE BANDS DONT ORIGINATE IN CIRCUMSTELLAR ENVELOPES
27 February 2008    WHT (UES)
The origin of the diffuse interstellar bands is a long-standing observational problem that now can see some light. A systematic survey of post-AGB stars, conducted by a team of Spanish and Dutch astronomers, has demonstrated for the first time that the carriers of the diffuse bands cannot be present in circumstellar envelopes. The result has been highlighted in Astronomy & Astrophysics journal this week and it indeed places the origin of the diffuse bands in the interstellar medium.

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN SEMESTER 2008B
21 February 2008
Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2008B: August 1, 2008 - January 31, 2009.

Scientific news
OPPORTUNITY FOR EXTENDED SERVICE OBSERVING
31 January 2008
The ING is pleased to announce a special call for proposals to the WHT service programme, for up to 18 nights scheduled from May to July this year. This opportunity, which extends to all our communities, has arisen out of the wish to exploit the newly commissioned laser guide star beacon, GLAS, working in conjunction with the NAOMI Adaptive Optics module and associated instrumentation. Proposals should be submitted by 29th February 2008 through the usual web application forms at the ING Service Programme web pages.

Scientific news
WINNER OF DUTCH ASTRONOMY OLYMPIAD WILL ENJOY THE INT EXPERIENCE
31 January 2008
The Dutch Astronomy Olympiad 2008 is aimed at high school students, raising interest for science studies with an emphasis on astronomy. And as in its previous edition, the winner of the final will be awarded with a trip to La Palma and observations with the Isaac Newton Telescope.

Scientific news
THE GALAXY ZOO AND HANNY'S VOORWERP
13 January 2008    WHT+INT (PFIP+ISIS+WFC)
Some individual objects from the Galaxy Zoo project have gained a lot of attention from the public; the most famous of these is the ghost-like Voorwerp (the Dutch word for object), which was discovered by Dutch schoolteacher Hanny van Arkle. Observations with the William Herschel, among others, led astronomers to the conclusion that this object consists of a cloud of highly ionized gas.

Scientific news
TIMES TOP 10 SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES OF 2007: INTERNATIONAL ACCOLADE FOR SUPERWASP
17 December 2007
Time magazine places SuperWASP discoveries in the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2007.

Scientific news
IPHAS INITIAL DATA RELEASE
12 December 2007    INT (WFC)
The IPHAS collaboration, together with CASU and Astrogrid has announced the availability of the IPHAS Initial Data Release (IDR). The INT/WFC Photometric Halpha Survey of the Northern Galactic Plane is an imaging survey being carried out in H-alpha, Sloan r and Sloan i bands with the Wide Field Camera (WFC) on the Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) to a depth of r=20. The IPHAS IDR is a photometric catalogue of more than 200 million objects coupled with associated imaging data covering about 1700 square degrees three colours.

Scientific news
FIRST LIGHT OF FASTCAM ON THE WHT
12 December 2007    WHT (FASTCAM)
FastCam is an imaging camera that takes very short exposures in the optical wavelength range. By selecting the data least affected by the atmospheric turbulence, FastCam can produce very high-resolution images (10^-2 arcseconds). The instrument had been tested previously on other telescopes, and on the 27th of november it visited the William Herschel Telescope for the first time.

Scientific news
CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL OBSERVING TIME ON THE CANARY ISLANDS
6 December 2007
The International Scientific Committee (CCI) of the Roque de los Muchachos (ORM,La Palma) and Teide (OT, Tenerife) observatories invites applications for InternationalTime Programmes (ITP) on telescopes installed at these Observatories.

Scientific news
FIRST GROUND-LAYER ADAPTIVE-OPTICS SYSTEM FOR GENERAL ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS
30 November 2007
A team from the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes in collaboration with scientists from Durham University in the United Kingdom and from the University of Leiden and the ASTRON institute in The Netherlands have developed and commissioned at the William Herschel Telescope on the island of La Palma the first ground-layer adaptive optics system in the world that can be used for general astronomical observations.

Scientific news
SUPERWASP FINDS A STRONGLY-IRRADIATED TRANSITING GAS-GIANT EXOPLANET
8 November 2007    WHT (NAOMI+INGRID)
The WASP and SOPHIE collaboration has announced the discovery of WASP-3b, one of the hottest exoplanets discovered so far. At a temperature of more than 1700 degrees Celsius WASP-3b has the potential to place stringent constraints on exoplanet atmospheric models. The adaptive optics system of the William Herschel Telescope was used to exclude the possibility of a nearby eclipsing-binary system being the cause of the transits.

Scientific news
FIRST OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE THAT OUTFLOWS FROM AGNS ORIGINATE AS DISK WINDS
3 November 2007    WHT (ISIS SpecPol)
Astronomers from the Rochester Institute of Technology and from University of Hertfordshire have obtained the first observational evidence that outflows from active galactic nuclei originate as winds from rotating accretion disks surrounding a super-massive black hole. Such evidence came from observations of quasar PG 1700+518 made by ISIS spectrograph in spectropolarimetric mode on the William Herschel Telescope.

Scientific news
COMET 17P/HOLMES OBSERVED WITH THE EYES OF THE INT
2 November 2007    INT (WFC)
The Isaac Newton Telescope pointed to the comet 17P/Holmes just after the sunset of the following night to the outburst, and it has been tracking its evolution since then.

Scientific news
THE INGS TELESCOPES CONTRIBUTE TOWARDS THE 2007 GRUBER COSMOLOGY PRIZE
24 August 2007
The discovery that the expansion of the Universe is currently accelerating was achieved using the most powerful telescopes in the world, and in particular, the members of the Supernova Cosmology Project (SCP) team have been using the telescopes of the Isaac Newton Group since the early nineties extensively.

News;
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN 2008A
21 August 2007
Announcement of opportunity for observing time in semester 2008A: February 1, 2008

Scientific news
TWO STELLAR EXPLOSIONS AT EXACTLY THE SAME POSITION
31 July 2007    WHT (ISIS)
For the first time, astronomers have witnessed a double stellar explosion at exactly the same position on the sky suggesting the death of a massive star

Scientific news
FIRST LIGHT FOR THE GALAXY H-ALPHA FABRY-PEROT SYSTEM (GHAFAS)
18 July 2007    WHT (GHAFAS)
From July 6th to July 12th a new private instrument for the WHT, GHaFaS, saw its first run.The acronym GHaFaS stands for Galaxy Halpha Fabry-Perot System, and gives an idea of the nature and the prime use of the instrument. It is a new generation FP interferometer, whose chief and powerful advantage over traditional systems which have been used on telescopes is the high sensitivity photon counting detector

Scientific news
THOUSANDS OF DWARF GALAXIES IN THE COMA GALAXY CLUSTER
27 June 2007    WHT (AF2)
Astronomers have been able to identify about 1600 dwarf galaxies in the Coma galaxy cluster, which are likely to be either part of a population of low-surface-brightness dwarf galaxies or too red to be detected in the existing optical surveys.

Scientific news
A LOW-MASS PRE MAIN SEQUENCE ECLIPSING BINARY SYSTEM
27 June 2007    INT (WFC)
Astronomers have been able to obtain accurate and empirical measurements of the the masses and radii of the component stars of a new low mass eclipsing binary system. JW 380, as it is called, comprises a 0.26, 0.15 solar-mass pre main sequence stars and it is located in the very young Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC). More information: http://www.ing.iac.es/PR/press/orion.html

Community event;Press release
CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL DE ASTROFISICA SOBRE LA NATURALEZA DE LAS NEBULOSAS PLANETARIAS ASIMETRICAS
19 June 2007
El Grupo de Telescopios Isaac Newton y el Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias organizan del 18 al 22 de junio en el Hotel H10 Taburiente Playa en Los Cancajos (La Palma) un congreso internacional de astrofisica para discutir sobre la naturaleza de las nebulosas planetarias asimetricas, objetos celestes cuya morfologia y evolucion son motivo de un intenso estudio y debate entre los astrofisicos.

Outreach event;Press release
CONFERENCIA PUBLICA
19 June 2007
Con motivo del congreso internacional de astrofisica que se celebra en Los Cancajos (La Palma), el proximo viernes 22 de junio a las 20:00 horas tendra lugar una conferencia publica en el Palacio de Salazar en Santa Cruz de La Palma que lleva por titulo: El Universo Caliente y Exotico Visto en Rayos X, a cargo del cientifico titular del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Martin Guerrero Roncel.

Scientific news
FIRST LIGHT FOR GLAS LASER BEACON
7 June 2007    WHT (GLAS)
The GLAS laser beam produces a bright star-like beacon at an elevation of some 15 kilometres above the observatory. This beacon is used to sense the wavefront distortions due to the atmosphere that are subsequently corrected by the Adaptive Optics system. Full operation of the GLAS laser and the NAOMI Adaptive Optics system is anticipated for fall of 2007.

Scientific news
BROWN DWARFS AND ISOLATED PLANETARY-MASS OBJECTS MIGHT FOLLOW THE SAME FORMATION PROCESS
6 June 2007    WHT+INT (LIRIS, WFC)
A deep infrared survey of the young sigma Orionis open cluster using the Wide Field Camera on the Isaac Newton Telescope has revealed that brown dwarfs and isolated planetary-mass objects may share the same origin.

Scientific news
THE MOST DETAILED IMAGE EVER PRODUCED OF THE ROSETTE NEBULA
23 April 2007    INT (WFC)
This new image of the Rosette Nebula (NGC 2237) is thought to be the most-detailed ever produced. Compiled from data taken from the Isaac Newton Telescope Photometric Hydrogen-alpha Survey of the Northern Galactic Plane (IPHAS), the image spans four square degrees, about twenty times the size of the full moon.

Scientific news
A WHIRLPOOL IN THE WAKE LEFT BY A DYING STAR
20 April 2007    INT (WFC)
Using data from the Isaac Newton Telescope Photometric Hydrogen-alpha Survey of the Northern Galactic Plane (IPHAS), astronomers have found evidence that giant whirlpools form in the wake of stars as they move through clouds in interstellar space.

Scientific news
THE YORP EFFECT DETECTED ON NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID 2000 PH5
8 March 2007    INT (WFC)
Astronomers have seen an asteroid change the rate at which it spins for the first time, and shown that it is due to the YORP theoretical effect predicted but never before seen.

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN 2007B
14 February 2007
Announcement of opportunity for observing time in semester 2007B: August 1, 2007

Scientific news
OPPORTUNITY FOR EXTENDED SERVICE OBSERVING - APRIL 2007
9 February 2007
The ING is pleased to announce a special call for proposals to the WHT service programme, for up to nine nights in April.

Scientific news
ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES - POSITION STATEMENT
31 January 2007
This brief paper summarizes INGs position and its view of how it expects to continue to deliver a high-quality service to the astronomical community from one of the best observing sites in the world

Scientific news
CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL OBSERVING TIME ON THE CANARY ISLANDS
23 January 2007
This is an announcement of opportunity for observing time on all night-timetelescopes at the Roque de los Muchachos and Teide Observatories in theCanary Islands, under the auspices of the International ScientificCommittee.

Scientific news
EX-CHAIRPERSON OF THE ING BOARD BECOMES NEXT DIRECTOR GENERAL OF ESO
16 January 2007
The ESO Council has just appointed Tim de Zeeuw as the next Director General of ESO, effective as of 1 September 2007. Professor de Zeeuw occupied the chair of the ING Board from 1999 to 2002 and he was also responsible for the development of SAURON for the William Herschel Telescope.

Scientific news
ULTRACAM OBTAINS THE FIRST OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE OF A DEAD CATACLYSMIC VARIABLE
20 December 2006    WHT (ULTRACAM)
A long-standing and unverified prediction of binary star evolution theory is the existence of a population of white dwarfs accreting from substellar donor stars. Such systems ought to be common, but the difficulty of finding them, combined with the challenge of detecting the donor against the light from accretion, means that no donor star to date has a measured mass below the hydrogen burning limit. Now astronomers using ULTRACAM on the William Herschel Telescope claim the first detection.

Image release
A NEW PLANETARY NEBULA DISCOVERED BY IPHAS
21 November 2006    INT (WFC)
The Isaac Newton Telescope/Wide-Field Camera H-alpha Survey of the Northern Galactic Plane (IPHAS) has discovered a new Planetary Nebula.

Scientific news
ASYMMETRICAL PLANETARY NEBULAE IV CONFERENCE, LA PALMA, 18-22 JUNE 2007
16 November 2006
After more than two decades of intensive work, understanding the complex shapes of planetary nebulae and their implication on stellar evolution in general, is still a challenging and exciting goal. This is the fourth meeting of the APN conferences series devoted to this astrophysical problem. It will be held from June 18 to 22, 2007, on La Palma in the Canary Islands (Spain).

Scientific news
UES DETECTS RUBIDIUM IN ASYMPTOTIC GIANT BRANCH STARS
14 November 2006    WHT (UES)
A long debated issue concerning the nucleosynthesis of neutron-rich elements in Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars is the identification of the neutron source. Recently, a team of astronomers using UES spectrograph on the William Herschel Telescope has detected rubidium from the overproduction of the long-lived radioactive isotope 87Rb in intermediate-mass AGB stars in our Galaxy. This represents a direct observational evidence, predicted theoretically 40 years ago, of the slow-neutron capture process following the 22Ne(α,n)25Mg reaction.

Scientific news
LIRIS OBSERVES THE LEAST-MASSIVE BROWN DWARFS IN THE PLEIADES
14 November 2006    WHT (LIRIS)
A search for low-mass brown dwarfs in the Pleiades open cluster has led to the identification of the least massive cluster members: BRB 28 and 29 have masses of the order of 25 Jupiter masses

Scientific news
SUPERWASP FINDS ITS FIRST TRANSITING EXOPLANETS
26 September 2006    WHT+INT (NAOMI+INGRID, IDS)
A team of UK, French and Swiss astronomers has discovered two new Jupiter-sized extrsolar planets, WASP-1b (also named as Gara

Scientific news
SEMINAR AT ING: THE SEARCH FOR EXTRASOLAR PLANETS
30 August 2006
Aldo Fiorenzano (TNG) will give a seminar on "The search for extrasolar planets: Study of line bisectors and its relation with precise radial velocity measurements", at the 6th floor meeting room of Mayantigo Building (sea-level office) at 12:00am on the 6th of September. They have prepared a suitable software in order to use the same spectra acquired for radial velocity determinations (i.e., with the spectrum of the Iodine cell imprinted on) to measure variations of the stellar line profiles. This is a novel approach, that can be of general utility in all high precision radial velocity surveys based on iodine cell data. This software has then been extensively used on data acquired within our survey (at TNG), allowing a proper insight into a number of interesting cases, where spurious estimates of the radial velocities due to activity or contamination by light from the companions were revealed. The same technique can also be considered to correct the measured radial velocities, in order to search for p

Scientific news
ING BIENNIAL REPORT 2004-2005
6 August 2006
The 2004-2005 Biennial Report of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes is already available online at http://www.ing.iac.es/PR/AR2005/

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN 2007A
6 August 2006
Announcement of opportunity for observing time on the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, La Palma, in semester 2007A: February 1, 2007-July 31, 2007. Further details of the proposal submission process and current instrumentation at ING.

Scientific news
DISCOVERY OF THE PROGENITOR OF NOVA CYGNI 2006 IN IPHAS IMAGES
15 June 2006
On 2 April 2006 a new nova was reported in Cygnus (IAUC No. 8697). This is now named V2362 Cygnus, and it reached a peak magnitude of 8 on 6 April 2006. IPHAS observations of this same part of the sky were obtained on 3 August 2004, and have now been found to include a (rare) detection of the nova progenitor at r = 20.30(+/-0.05). This valuable result has been reported as ATEL No. 795.

Press event
CONFERENCIA PUBLICA "PLUTONES Y CARONTES EN EL CINTURON TRANSNEPTUNIANO: ES PLUTON EL NOVENO PLANETA?"
17 May 2006
Con motivo de la celebracion del Congreso Internacional de Astrofisica que se celebra en Los Cancajos, el proximo viernes 19 de mayo a las 20:00 horas tendra lugar una conferencia publica en el Palacio de Salazar de Santa Cruz de La Palma que lleva por titulo Plutones y Carontes en el Cinturon Transneptuniano: es Pluton el noveno planeta? a cargo del astrofisico Javier Licandro.

Press event
AVISO DE RUEDA DE PRENSA - CON MOTIVO DEL CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL DE ASTROFISICA QUE SE CELEBRA ESTA SEMANA EN EL HOTEL H10 TABURIENTE PLAYA
16 May 2006
Manana miercoles 17 de mayo a las 10:45 de la manana tendra lugar una rueda de prensa en el Salon Teneguia del Hotel H10 Taburiente Playa de Los Cancajos para presentar el congreso internacional de astrofisica The Nature of V838 Mon and Its Light Echo (La Naturaleza de V838 Mon y su Eco de Luz) que se celebra esta semana en el mismo hotel.

Scientific news
CONFERENCE ON THE NATURE OF V838 MON AND ITS LIGHT ECHO, LA PALMA, 16-19 MAY 2006
16 May 2006
From 16th to 19th May, 2006 the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes is organising a conference on The Nature of V838 Mon and Its Light Echo at La Palma.

Scientific news
SEMINAR AT ING: HIGH REDSHIFT LY-ALPHA EMITTERS IN THE GOODS-S FIELD
16 April 2006
Kim Nilsson (ESO) will give a seminar on "High redshift Ly-alpha emitters in the GOODS-S field" at the next 6th floor meeting room, sea-level office, at 4:00 p.m. next 27th of April (Thursday).

Scientific news
SLOW MOTION MERGERS IN GALAXY CLUSTERS PROVIDE CONDITIONS TO TRANSFORM SPIRALS TO SMOOTH DISKS
5 April 2006    JKT (JKTCCD)
Slow Motion Mergers in Galaxy Clusters Provide Conditions to Transform Spirals to Smooth Disks is a press release issued by the Royal Astronomical Association during the National Astronomy Meeting 2006 in Leicester. It is based on observations obtained with the Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope.

Scientific news
ING TECHNICAL NOTE: CONVERSION OF ING CAMERAS TO SDSU GENERATION 3 CONTROLLERS
4 April 2006
ING Technical Note No. 131: Conversion of ING Cameras to SDSU Generation 3 Controllers describes the changes required in the conversion of a camera to Gen III.

Scientific news
USERS MEETING AT NAM 2006: ASTRONOMY FROM LA PALMA: DEVELOPMENTS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS
15 March 2006
This session is a question-and-answer mini-workshop aimed at providing the La Palma user community with a forum to discuss current and future developments on the island. It will be structured around a small number of presentations by ING staff summarizing current activities and forthcoming developments. Those interested in making a short presentation, either formal or informal, should contact the session chair, to whom suggestions for discussion points should also be addressed. The preliminary agenda includes a short review of ING, its instrumentation and operational plans, concentrating in particular on its AO/laser guide star project. In addition there will be a special contribution on the 10m GTC which will be offered to the UK community through the auspices of ESO, discussing how science time will be offered to ESO countries.

Scientific news
SEMINAR AT ING: FORMATION, EVOLUTION AND MULTIPLICITY OF BDS AND GIANT EXOPLANETS
8 March 2006
Brown dwarfs are the bridge between the least massive stars and Jovianplanets. More than ten years after the discovery, the formationmechanism of brown dwarfs and isolated planetary-mass objects is notcompletely understood. In this talk, I will give a summary on theproperties of the substellar objects and show several scientificoutcomes from my PhD research.

Scientific news
WHT AND NOT OBSERVATIONS PROBING COSMIC EVOLUTION WITH GRBS: GRB 060206 AT Z=4.048
2 March 2006    WHT (ISIS)
Early in the morning of February the 6th, 2006 a GRB was detected by the Swift satellite.Within 15 minutes the NOT was pointed towards this burst by the Danish GRB follow-up group. Using ALFOSC a bright optical afterglow was discovered in the R band. Directly after the detection had been made, a low-resolution spectrum was acquired using the same instrument. The latter spectrum rapidly determined the redshift of GRB 060206 at z=4.048. Meanwhile, the WHT had been alerted through our collaboration of the NOT and WHT, involving GRB follow-up teams from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Denmark. Starting at just 1.6 hours after the burst a medium-resolution spectrum could be obtained using WHTs ISIS spectrograph. The combination of the NOT and WHT provides a unique window on this afterglow.

Scientific news
SEMINAR AT ING: COSMOLOGICAL INFLATION
1 March 2006
Enormous progress has been made in inflationary cosmology in the pastfew years and this seminar is to provide historical and modernoverview of the subject.

Scientific news
SEMINAR AT ING: DWARF ELLIPTICAL GALAXIES IN CLUSTERS: NEAR INFRARED PERSPECTIVES
1 March 2006
The structural properties and the fundamental scaling relations of cluster dwarf elliptical (and dS0) galaxies will be reviewed, based on the NIR (H-band, 1.65 micron) surface photometry observations in nearby clusters of galaxies (Virgo and Centaurus in particular) collected by the author and G. Gavazzi in the framework of the GOLDMiNe survey.

Scientific news
ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN 2006B
17 February 2006
ING announcement of opportunity for observing time in semester 2006B: August 1, 2006 - January 31, 2007.

Scientific news
PROCEEDINGS OF THE WORKSHOP ON AO ASSISTED IF SPECTROSCOPY AVAILABLE ONLINE
13 February 2006
The proceedings of the Workshop on Adaptive-Optics Assisted Integral-Field Spectroscopy, 9-11 May 2005, La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain are already available online: Rutten, R. G. M., Benn, C. R., Méndez, J., 2006, New Astronomy Reviews, 49, 487-704.

Scientific news
ING USER QUESTIONNAIRE - SUMMARY OF THE RESULTS
23 January 2006
Earlier this year a questionnaire was issued to our community of telescope users with a number of questions regarding the current and future use of the ING telescopes.Here we present the results.

Scientific news
ING NEWSLETTER NO. 10, DECEMBER 2005 AVAILABLE ONLINE
23 January 2006
The ING Newsletter is published twice a year and it contains scientific news from the data acquired with the ING telescopes, information on developments of the ING telescopes and instrumentation, telescope time allocations and useful information on how to apply and other news.

Scientific news
SEMINAR AT ING: THE QSO HE1013-2136 (Z = 0.785): TRACING THE ULIRG - QSO CONNECTION TOWARDS LARGE LOOK-BACK TIMES?
21 January 2006
Jochen Heidt from Landessternwarte Heidelberg will give the seminar entitled The QSO HE1013-2136 (z=0.785): tracing the ULIRG - QSO connection towards large look-back times?at the meeting room on the 6th floor of the sea-level base at 16:00pm on 24th January (Tuesday), 2006.

Scientific news
WHT AND TNG OBSERVATIONS PROVE THAT THE LARGE TRANS-NEPTUNIAN OBJECT 2005 FY9 IS VERY SIMILAR TO PLUTO
16 January 2006    WHT (ISIS)
Visible and near-infrared spectroscopic observations carried out on August 1st 2005 by a group led by the ING-IAC astronomer Javier Licandro using the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) and the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) simultaneously show that the recently discovered trans-neptunian object (TNO) 2005 FY9 is very similar to Pluto. Results have been published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics (Licandro et al., 2006, A&A,445, 35L).

Scientific news
A GASEOUS METAL DISK AROUND A WHITE DWARF
2 January 2006    WHT+INT (ISIS, WFC)
The destiny of planetary systems through the late evolution of their host stars is very uncertain. Recently a team of astronomers from the University of Warwick using both the William Herschel Telescope and the Isaac Newton Telescope found a metal-rich gas disk around a moderately hot and young white dwarf.

Outreach event
ING PARTICIPATES IN THE EUROPEAN SCIENCE WEEK
19 November 2005
19 November 2005. ING participates in the European Science Week dedicated to Einsteins theory of relativity on La Palma.

Community event
SPECIALIST DISCUSSION MEETING ON "SCIENCE FROM LA PALMA - LOOKING BEYOND 2009"
14 October 2005
14 October 2005. Specialist Discussion Meeting on Science from La Palma - Looking beyond 2009, at Burlington House, London, organised by the Royal Astronomical Society and ING.

Scientific news
GAS AND DUST PROPERTIES IN THE AFTERGLOW SPECTRA OF THE THIRD-HIGHEST-REDSHIFT GRB 050730
23 August 2005    WHT (ISIS)
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have proven to be excellent probes of the distant Universe. The high luminosities of GRB afterglows allow absorption line studies of the interstellar medium at high redshift to at least z=4.5. Deep observations of afterglow positions have detected host galaxies in almost all cases. Most hosts are compact, low-metallicity, actively star-forming galaxies and are found to have low intrinsic extinction. However, in a few cases, radio/submillimeter observations of hosts give a star-formation rate which is of order a few to ~100 larger than rates derived from optical estimators.

Announcement
ING ANNOUNCEMENT OF OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVING TIME IN 2006A
22 August 2005

Photo release
VISITING COMMITTEE OF THE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW PANEL
18 July 2005
Visiting committee of the international review panel 18-19 July, 2005

Scientific news
DEEP IMPACT AT ING !
4 July 2005    WHT+INT (LIRIS,WFC,NAOMI+INGRID)
When comet Tempel 1 came into view from La Palma, some 16 hours after the NASA Deep Impact probe struck the comet, members of the La Palma Deep Impact Collaborating Observers team were able to start tracking the target comet with the 2.5m Isaac Newtow Telescope.

Outreach event
OPEN DAYS
2 July 2005
Online booking. 2 Jul, 9 Jul, 30 Jul, 13 Aug.

Community event;Web news
2ND MEETING ON HOT SUBDWARF STARS AND RELATED OBJECTS
6 June 2005
6-10 June 2005. 2nd Meeting on Hot Subdwarf Stars and Related Objects, organised by ING and NOT.

Community event;Press release
MAS DE 60 EXPERTOS DE TODO EL MUNDO DEBATEN EN LA PALMA SOBRE UNA NUEVA TECNICA DE OBSERVACION ASTRONOMICA
10 May 2005
El Grupo de Telescopios Isaac Newton celebra un congreso del 9 al 11 de mayo en el Hotel H10 Taburiente Playa de Los Cancajos que reune en La Palma a mas de 60 astrofisicos de todo el mundo para discutir los ultimos avances y las perspectivas futuras de una puntera y novedosa tecnica de observacion astronomica que se encuentra en desarrollo en el telescopio William Herschel del Observatorio del Roque de Los Muchachos.

Press release
LIRIS OBSERVATIONS OF SUPERNOVA SN 2004AO
14 January 2005    WHT (LIRIS)
The spectrum of SN 2004ao shows a set of broad emission bands superimposed on a quite flat continium, indicating that the supernova was close to reach the nebular phase at the date of the observations.

Outreach event
ING PARTICIPATES IN THE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY WEEK ON LA PALMA
8 November 2004
8-14 November 2004. ING participates in the Science and Technology Week on La Palma, dedicated to astrobiology.

Scientific news
WILLIAM HERSCHEL TELESCOPE IDENTIFIES THE COMPANION STAR OF TYPE IA TYCHO BRAHE'S 1572 SUPERNOVA
28 October 2004    WHT (AUXCAM, UES, ISIS)

Web news
OPEN DAY AT THE ROQUE DE LOS MUCHACHOS OBSERVATORY
15 August 2004
Open Day at the Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory from 09:00 to 16:00. ING telescopes open to the public. Come and visit us!.

Web news
FIRST LIGHT ON THE NEW WYFFOS LONG CAMERA
27 July 2004    WHT (AF2)
First light on the new WYFFOS Long Camera.

Photo release
VISIT OF SPANISH EDUCATION AND SCIENCE MINISTER
25 July 2004

Web news
NIK SZYMANEK RECEIVES THE PRESTIGIOUS AMATEUR ACHIEVEMENT AWARD OF THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF THE PACIFIC.
19 May 2004
Nik Szymanek, INGs public outreach collaborator, receives the prestigious Amateur Achievement Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

Community event;Photo release
REMOTE INAUGURATION OF SUPERWASP FROM ING'S SEA-LEVEL OFFICE
16 April 2004
Remote inauguration of SuperWASP from INGs sea-level office. 16th April 2004

Image release
M81 AND SN 1993J'S COMPANION: ASTRONOMY PICTURE OF THE DAY
12 February 2004    INT (WFC)
12 February 2004. M81 and SN 1993Js companion: Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Photo release
PEDRO DUQUE VISITS THE WILLIAM HERSCHEL TELESCOPE
29 January 2004    WHT
Pedro Duque visits the William Herschel Telescope - 29 January 2004

Community event
COURSE ON ADAPTIVE OPTICS ORGANISED BY ING
12 January 2004

Web news
ING SUPPORTS THE SOCIEDAD DE ESTUDIOS GENERALES DE LA ISLA DE LA PALMA
6 September 2003
ING supports the Sociedad de Estudios Generales de la isla de La Palma, a society to promote general research on La Palma and communication between local investigators.

Photo release;Outreach event
BBC'S LIVE BROADCAST FROM INT: THE ALL NIGHT STAR PARTY!
23 August 2003    INT
BBCs All Night Star Party from the INT! 23rd August 2003

Outreach event;Press release
VIDA INTELIGENTE EN EL UNIVERSO - CONFERENCIA PUBLICA
27 May 2003
El miercoles 28 de mayo a las 20:00 horas en el Real Club Nautico de Santa Cruz de La Palma (sede de la Calle Real), el Doctor Manuel Vazquez Abeledo, investigador del Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, impartira la conferencia divulgativa Vida inteligente en el Universo. Tratara sobre las ultimas noticias en torno a la existencia y busqueda de otras civilizaciones en nuestro Universo, uno de los temas de mayor interes en la astrofisica actual. La entrada sera libre.

Press release
SPECTACULAR VIEWS OF AN EXPLODING STAR
27 March 2003    WHT (AUXCAM)
An astronomer from the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes has obtained spectacular images of the star V838 Monocerotis which became the brightest in our Galaxy when it exploded in January 2002. One of the images will be highlighted on the front cover of the journal Nature on 27 March 2003 and in a research paper published in the same issue.

Press release
THE WILLIAM HERSCHEL TELESCOPE FINDS THE BEST CANDIDATE FOR A SUPERNOVA EXPLOSION
31 January 2003    WHT (UES)
An international team of astronomers using the Utrecht Echelle Spectrograph on the William Herschel Telescope has identified the bright star Rho Cassiopeiae as the best candidate to undergo a supernova explosion in the near future. The results of this investigation are to be published in a research paper in The Astrophysical Journal on February 1.

Photo release;Outreach event
ANATOLI KARPOV VISITS THE WILLIAM HERSCHEL TELESCOPE - 23 NOVEMBER 2002
23 November 2002    WHT

Press release
A SHARPER LOOK AT NEAR EARTH ASTEROID 2002 NY40
4 September 2002    WHT (NAOMI+INGRID)
The Near Earth Asteroid 2002 NY40 was observed with the William Herschel Telescope on La Palma, Canary Islands, on the night of August 17 to 18, 2002. The asteroid was imaged just before its closest approach to Earth, using the Adaptive Optics system NAOMI. These are the first images of a Near Earth Asteroid obtained with an Adaptive Optics system.

Outreach event;Press release
CHARLA DIVULGATIVA "POR QUE TODO ES SIMETRICO?"
30 May 2002
Manana viernes 31 de mayo a las 20:00 horas en el Palacio de Salazar de Santa Cruz de La Palma el Doctor Antonio Mampaso, investigador del Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, impartira una interesante charla divulgativa que lleva por titulo Por que todo es simetrico?. El Doctor Mampaso nos ensenara que los objetos simetricos son muy comunes en la vida ordinaria pero que, sin embargo, nuestro Universo se encuentra en la frontera entre la simetria y la no-simetria, entre el orden y el desorden. La entrada esta abierta al publico en general.

Community event;Press release
ING ORGANISES A CONFERENCE ON "SYMBIOTIC STARS PROBING STELLAR EVOLUTION", FROM 27 TO 31 MAY
24 May 2002
Desde el 27 hasta el 31 de mayo tendra lugar en el hotel H10 Taburiente Playa de Los Cancajos, La Palma el congreso internacional de astrofisica Symbiotic Stars Probing Stellar Evolution (las estrellas simbioticas como pruebas de la evolucion estelar). En este congreso, al que asistiran mas de 100 astrofisicos de todo el mundo, se presentaran los ultimos resultados sobre la formacion y la evolucion de las estrellas simbioticas, sistemas estelares formados por dos estrellas que conviven afectando mutuamente su evolucion.

Photo release;Outreach event
THOMAS HARDY SCHOOL (DORCHESTER, DORSET, UK) OBSERVES AT THE JKT
25 November 2001    JKT
On 23rd November, five students, two staff, and three support staff, from the Thomas Hardye School, Dorchester travelled to the island of La Palma, in the Canaries, as the start of their Field Trip to the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes in the European Northern Observatory. The five students were Daniel Heanes, Ben Cowsill, Richard Mott, Howard Williams, Year 13, and William Hollins, Year 12. The staff from Thomas Hardye School were Mrs L. Harwood, and Mrs J. Harley. Support astronomers Mr David Strange and Mr Bob Mizon accompanied the party, as did Mr Alan Harwood.

Photo release;Outreach event
LA PALMITA SCHOOL (LA PALMA, SPAIN) OBSERVES AT THE JKT
24 November 2001    JKT (JKTCCD)
Visit of La Palmita School (La Palma, Spain). 24 November 2001 and 27 March 2002

Image release
FIRST RESULTS FROM NAOMI IN THE OPTICAL
29 October 2001    WHT (NAOMI)
These pages provide some examples of what has been accomplished with the WHT Adaptive Optics system, NAOMI.

Community event;Photo release
SCIENCE FROM LA PALMA - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE, A WORKSHOP ORGANISED BY ING IN HONOUR OF DR PAUL MURDIN
20 October 2001
20 October 2001. Science from La Palma - Past, Present and Future, a workshop organised by ING in honour of Dr Paul Murdin.

Photo release;Outreach event
THE SPANISH SCIENTIFIC SERIES FUTURO IS FILMED AT THE WHT
9 October 2001
The Spanish scientific series Futuro is filmed at the WHT.

Outreach event
TVE'S CRONICAS PROGRAM IS FILMED AT ING
7 September 2001

Outreach event
BBC'S FINAL FRONTIER VISITS ING AGAIN FOR A NEW PROGRAMME.
27 August 2001
27 August 2001. BBCs Final Frontier visits ING again for a new programme.

Outreach event
BBC'S FINAL FRONTIER FILMED AT ING. SHOWN ON BBC2
20 July 2001
20-23 July 2001. Final Frontier filmed at ING. Shown on BBC2 on 3 and 10 August.

Press release
S-CAM, THE WORLD'S MOST ADVANCED OPTICAL CAMERA, CAPTURES ECLIPSE OF BINARY STAR
11 July 2001    WHT (SCAM)
A totally new type of optical detector has been used on the William Herschel Telescope to directly measure intensity and colour changes in a faint, rapidly variable binary star system, UZ Fornacis, for the first time. A team from the Space Science Department of the European Space Agencys Research and Technology Centre in the Netherlands (ESA/ESTEC), who have developed the S-Cam camera, were joined by astronomers from the Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) in the UK to exploit this advanced instrument.

Community event;Photo release
PHOTOS OF THE CENTRAL KPC OF STARBURSTS AND AGNS CONFERENCE, 7-11 MAY 2001
9 June 2001
7-11 May 2001. First scientific conference organised by ING: The central kiloparsec of startbursts and active galactic nuclei: The La Palma connection.

Community event;Press release
CONGRESO INTERNACIONAL DE ASTROFISICA ORGANIZADO POR EL GRUPO DE TELESCOPIOS ISAAC NEWTON DEL 7 AL 11 DE MAYO EN LOS CANCAJOS
4 May 2001
Desde el dia 7 hasta el dia 11 de mayo tendra lugar en Los Cancajos (La Palma) un congreso internacional de astrofisica al que asistiran mas de 120 astronomos de todo el mundo. El congreso ha sido organizado por el Grupo de Telescopios Isaac Newton en colaboracion con el Excmo. Cabildo Insular y el Patronato de Turismo de La Palma.

Community event;Press release
THE ISAAC NEWTON GROUP OF TELESCOPES HOSTS A CONFERENCE ON ACTIVE GALAXIES
4 May 2001
Astronomers from all over the world will be meeting on La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain from 7 to 11 May to attend an international conference on the central kiloparsecs of nearby active galaxies. This conference will review recent progress and discuss the future strategies on this very active research field.

Photo release
PHOTOS OF THE VISIT OF THE ING REVIEW COMMITTE
16 February 2001

Photo release;Outreach event
ING OPEN DAYS: VISITORS' IMPRESSIONS
27 August 2000

Press release
COMET LINEAR: GOING, GOING... BUT NOT QUITE GONE!
4 August 2000    JKT (JKTCCD)
Continuous monitoring of Comet LINEAR by the Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope showed that it was disintegrating as it approached the Sun. The latest and best images from the larger aperture Isaac Newton Telescope now give us the clearest idea so far of how and why the comet disintegrated.

Press release
THE JACOBUS KAPTEYN TELESCOPE OBSERVES THE DEATH OF COMET LINEAR
28 July 2000    JKT (JKTCCD)
Nightly observations made since July 23 in different broadband filters with the 1-m Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope on La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain show what appears to be the complete disruption of the nucleus of comet LINEAR, the brightest comet of the year.

Press release
"INVISIBLE" GALAXIES, DISTORTED ARCS AND GALACTIC RINGS REVEALED BY FIRST IMAGES FROM INGRID
29 June 2000    WHT (INGRID)
The Isaac Newton Group Red Imaging Device (INGRID) saw its first light on the William Herschel Telescope on March 16. INGRID provides astronomers with the opportunity to make large field of view, deep near-infrared observations of the universe, as demonstrated by the images achieved on the first night of scientific use.

Press release
EL TELESCOPIO WILLIAM HERSCHEL OBSERVA POR PRIMERA VEZ UN PLANETA FUERA DEL SISTEMA SOLAR
16 December 1999    WHT (UES)
Un equipo de astronomos britanicos, utilizando el telescopio William Herschel y tecnicas de computacion avanzadas, ha observado por primera vez de forma directa un planeta fuera del Sistema Solar. El hallazgo del planeta Milenio, como asi lo han bautizado sus descubridores, se publica hoy en la prestigiosa revista cientifica Nature.

Press release
THE ISAAC NEWTON TELESCOPE DISCOVERS A NEW LOCAL GROUP GALAXY
1 December 1999    INT (WFC)
Astronomers using the Isaac Newton Telescope report in a research paper published in the December issue of the Astronomical Journal the discovery of a new Local Group galaxy, never catalogued before, in the constellation Cetus. The Cetus dwarf galaxy, as it is called, is a very intriguing object. At a distance of 800 kiloparsec, it is only 1-2 kiloparsecs in diameter and it contains only a million or so stars, placing it firmly at the faint end of the galaxy luminosity function.

Community event;Press release
WORKSHOP ON INSTRUMENTATION AT ING. THE NEXT DECADE.
7 April 1999
From 7th to 9th April a workshop dedicated to instrumentation at the ING will take place at Halifax Hall of Residence, The University of Sheffield, UK. The new decade brings into routine operation a number of larger than 8-m telescopes. The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes must adapt to these new parameters, and present a viable future instrumentational and operational development route to maximise its future effectiveness and relevance to the astronomical communities needs.

Press release
EL GRUPO ISAAC NEWTON ACOGE POR PRIMERA VEZ A ESTUDIANTES DE FORMACION PROFESIONAL EN PRACTICAS
6 April 1999
Desde el dia 5 de Abril el Grupo de Telescopios Isaac Newton acoge, por primera vez, a cuatro estudiantes palmeros en practicas procedentes del Instituto de Educacion Secundaria de San Andres y Sauces.

Press release
ASTRONOMERS COMPLETE FIRST PHASE OF LARGE AREA, FAINT SKY SURVEY
6 April 1999    INT (WFC)
An international team of astronomers led by Prof. Jan van Paradijs, University of Amsterdam has recently completed the first phase of a multi-year project to survey the sky to very faint limits using the Isaac Newton Telescope on La Palma, Canary Islands.

Press release
A TOTALLY NEW DETECTOR SEES FIRST LIGHT AT THE WHT
15 February 1999    WHT (SCAM)
A totally new concept in optical detector instrumentation has made its first appearance at the William Herschel Telescope on 2 February 1999. The Superconducting Tunnel Junction Camera (S-CAM), designed and built by members of the Astrophysics Division of the European Space Agency, consists of a photon counting system which provides position and arrival time of each detected photon, along with the photon energy for the first time in history of optical astronomy.

Press release
ASTRONOMERS FIND POSSIBILITY FOR A PLANET LIKE OURS WITH AN ORBIT THAT ALLOWS THE EXISTENCE OF LIVE, DAILY TELEGRAPH REPORTS
4 November 1998    INT+JKT
Today the UK Daily Telegraph newspaper has reported that a team of astronomers led by Hans Deeg from the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias has discovered evidence for a planet like ours with an orbit that allows the existence of life. Their observations were carried out at the Isaac Newton and Jacobus Kapteyn Telescopes, among others, and their findings have been published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics on 10 October.

Press release
THE BRIGHTEST OBJECT EVER OBSERVED
1 October 1998    INT+JKT
The brightest object yet observed in the Universe, APM08279+5255, has been discovered by an astronomer at the Royal Greenwich Observatory and his colleagues using the ING telescopes Isaac Newton and Jacobus Kapteyn. Their findings have been published today in the Astrophysical Journal.

Outreach event;Press release
ROQUE DE LOS MUCHACHOS OBSERVATORY OPEN DAYS
21 July 1998
El Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos se complace en invitar a todos los habitantes de La Palma a visitar sus instalaciones los dias 26 de julio, 30 de agosto y 13 de septiembre mediante la organizacion de las ya tradicionales Puertas Abiertas.

Informative sheet;Press release
THE SOLAR ECLIPSE OF 26 FEBRUARY FROM LA PALMA.
17 February 1998
El proximo dia 26 de Febrero tendra lugar un eclipse de Sol que sera parcial y visible con dificultad desde La Palma.

Outreach event;Press release
THE ISAAC NEWTON GROUP HAS SET UP A MAILING LIST DEDICATED TO LA PALMA
27 November 1997
El Grupo de Telescopios Isaac Newton (ING) de La Palma ha puesto en marcha una lista de correo electronico dedicada a la difusion de todo tipo de informaciones sobre nuestra isla. Con esta iniciativa el ING desea que los palmeros con acceso a InterNet puedan aprovechar mejor las posibilidades de comunicacion que ofrecen las nuevas tecnologias.

Press release
THE WILLIAM HERSCHEL TELESCOPE DISCOVERS A NEW TYPE OF STAR
12 November 1997    WHT
Al comienzo de esta semana la Universidad de Wyoming en Laramie (USA) ha dado a conocer mediante una nota de prensa el descubrimiento de un nuevo tipo de estrella gracias a las observaciones llevadas a cabo principalmente con el telescopio William Herschel del Grupo Isaac Newton. Este descubrimiento fue publicado por algunos medios de comunicacion nacionales el pasado martes.

Press release
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ABOUT SITE PROPERTIES OF THE CANARIAN OBSERVATORIES TO BE HELD ON LA PALMA FROM THE 29TH UNTIL THE 30TH OF OCTOBER
28 October 1997
Los dias 29 y 30 de octubre tendra lugar el congreso internacional Site Properties of the Canarian Observatories (Calidad de los Observatorios Canarios) en el Hotel Taburiente Playa de los Cancajos en La Palma. Este congreso esta organizado por el Subcomite de Site Properties (SUCOSIP) del Comite Cientifico Internacional (CCI) de los observatorios canarios.

Press release
SUMMARY OF THE ROQUE DE LOS MUCHACHOS OBSERVATORY OPEN DAYS
16 September 1997    WHT
El Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC), el Grupo de Telescopios Isaac Newton (ING) y el Experimento HEGRA desean expresar su mas sincero agradecimiento a todos los que nos visitaron durante las Jornadas de Puertas Abiertas que se llevaron a cabo los dias 25 de julio, 10 de agosto y 14 de septiembre. Asimismo, ha sido para nosotros una enorme alegria y satisfaccion haber atendido a todos y ya estamos pensando en las Jornadas del proximo verano.

Outreach event;Press release
ROQUE DE LOS MUCHACHOS OBSERVATORY OPEN DAYS
21 July 1997    WHT
El Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos se complace en invitar a todos los habitantes de La Palma a visitar sus instalaciones los dias 25 de julio, 10 de agosto y 14 de septiembre. Para todo el personal del Observatorio es una enorme alegria poder ensenarles nuestras instalaciones y por eso un ano mas ha puesto toda su ilusion en las Jornadas de Puertas Abiertas.

Press release
EUROPEAN ASTRONOMERS DISCOVER NEW TYPE OF COMET TAIL
18 April 1997    WHT (COCAM, UES)
Observations carried out in the past few days to study the distribution of sodium atoms in Comet Hale-Bopp have led to the discovery of a new type of comet tail. Sodium atoms have previously been seen near the centers of other comets, but these observations reveal for the first time in Hale-Bopp a straight tail of sodium atoms 6 degrees long.

Press release
WILLIAM HERSCHEL TELESCOPE TAKES THE FIRST OPTICAL IMAGE OF A GAMMA-RAY BURST
16 April 1997    WHT+INT (AUXCAM, PFC)
One of the big unresolved mysteries in the Universe is the origin of the enigmatic gamma-ray bursts (GRB), intense bursts of the highest energy radiation that have been detected by gamma-ray telescopes in space. Until recently these bursts were never seen in the visible light, which hampered further progress in finding an explanation for the GRBs for more than two decades. This situation changed dramatically on February 28.

Press release
DAILY HALE-BOPP PICTURES
18 March 1997     (COCAM)
The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING) is showing the rest of the world pictures of the Hale-Bopp, through Internet, which are updated on a daily basis. These pictures are being taken mainly by the CoCam (Comet Camera), the wide field CCD imaging facility of the ING. By doing this, ING hopes nobody will miss the spectacle of the Hale-Bopp. It will also allow everyone to follow its evolutions during the days of its brightest visibility.

Informative sheet
THE HALE-BOPP COMET
25 February 1997
The Hale-Bopp comet has caused great interest within the media and the general public. The purpose of this information sheet is to give basic information about the comet and to help journalists with their work.


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Last modified: 20 November 2023