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ING Annual Report 1998
Previous: Chapter 4 - Telescope Performance | Up: Table of Contents | Next: Appendix A - The Isaac Newton Group of TelescopesChapter 5
Public Relations1998 has been a year of intensive work as far as public relations is concerned. We have not only dealt with numerous requests for information from many different organisations, but also have received many visits. Because of this ING has very much welcomed the news that the Spanish government plans to build a visitors' centre at the observatory.
A total of 5,905 people visited the ING in 1998. 134 visits were organised throughout the year and 90 during the Open Days. Most of the visitors are from Spain and in particular from the Canary Islands. However it's remarkable the high number of visits from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Excluding the Open Days, schools and astronomers are the most frequent visiting groups. The most visited telescope was the WHT with 5,406 visitors followed by the INT with 1,248 visitors.
As during previous years, three public Open Days were organised this summer and they attracted more visitors than ever before. More than 5,000 people visited the Observatory, of which over 3,000 came to see the ING telescopes.
ING has now established relationships with the Royal Astronomical Society, the recently set up Royal Observatory Greenwich at the National Maritime Museum in London, and the British Astronomical Society.
Amateur astronomers, Nik Szymanek and Ian King from the UK Deep Sky CCD imaging team produced an impressive collection of photo-compositions, which were very kindly provided to ING. These photos have been published by many different and prestigious astronomical publications. We have also used the photographs to make a start with our own collection of souvenirs.
The SPECTRUM newsletter was effectively discontinued with the closure of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. The resulting vacuum in the dissemination of information about the ING will be addressed by creating an ING Newsletter which will be published and distributed both in printed form and through the World Wide Web.
A total of 11 press releases were sent out reporting on scientific discoveries following from observations at ING and other news.
The plots below show some statistics of the visits to the ING telescopes in 1998. In spite of not organising casual visits to the ING, the number of visitors is very high every year - only group visits by school parties, amateur astronomical societies and similar bodies are organised. Hence, Open Days are essential giving a positive response from the visitors. [ Visitors per telescope.tif | Visits origin.tif | Visits.tif ]
Previous: Chapter 4 - Telescope Performance | Up: Table of Contents | Next: Appendix A - The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes
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