A
total of 2349 visitors split in 117 tours were shown round the WHT and
occasionally the INT in 2005. Visitors included Dr. Jan A. C. van de Donk,
the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and ESO Council member.
Conciding with the fiesta of La Bajada de la Virgen de
Las Nieves, a new model for organising tours on Open Days to reduce the
impact on the observatory operations was attempted. This time visitors
had to book online their tours. The number of tours per day was reduced
from 28 to 6 while increasing the total number of Open Days from 2 to
5.
Every year the people from Garafía, the municipality
the observatory belongs to, are invited to visit the observatory and get
together with the observatory staff for a barbecue. On 19th August another
Garafía Open Day took place and 90 Garafians visited the WHT.
The participants to the astronomy course “Taller aplicado
de investigación y observación astronómica en La
Palma”, organised by La Laguna University and the Spanish Distance
Learning University (UNED), and with the collaboration of ING among others,
and to the European Science and Technology Week (see accompanying photos
by Luis Cuesta, IAC), also had the opportunity of visiting the WHT. Both
visits received the financial support of OPTICON Public Outreach.
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