195
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
F. Sánchez, The Rise of Astrophysics in Modern Spain, Astronomers’ Universe,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66426-8_20
20
Bringing Astronomy to the Public
(1986–Present)
Astronomy outreach has always formed part of our activities since the days
when we were still the University Institute of Astrophysics and could organize
independently and plan as a body. There were two reasons for this, one basic
and the other practical. Being conscious of the attraction of everything relating to the Universe—so intimately connected with wanting to know who we
are, where we came from, where we are headed, whether we are alone—we
understood that we had to exploit this sense of awe in order to spread scientific knowledge in popular culture, so polluted with astrology and other pseudoscience. Rather than wait for knowledge to filter through slowly in school
textbooks, we also felt obliged to report in a direct form to the public that was
paying us for the discoveries that we were making. At the same time, we
wanted to make ourselves known to the public so that it could see what purpose was being served by all those domes that were sprouting like white mushrooms on the mountaintops of the Canaries.
For all these reasons, from the start we held regular open days at the
Observatories, gained media coverage, gave talks, and made ourselves available on request. Since there were so few of us at the time, we took weekly
turns to act as ciceroni on visits to the Observatories. It took many years for
researchers to be supplanted by specially trained guides.
I always saw an additional social benefit in this. It was important that it
should be Spaniards, preferably Canarians, who received the public at the
Observatories rather than foreigners operating those enormous and complex
telescopes in order to show that we too were people capable of discovering the
celestial marvels about which they had heard so much. In that way we would
we help our youngsters to break down our ancestral inferiority complex. They
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
F. Sánchez, The Rise of Astrophysics in Modern Spain, Astronomers’ Universe,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66426-8_20
20
Bringing Astronomy to the Public
(1986–Present)
Astronomy outreach has always formed part of our activities since the days
when we were still the University Institute of Astrophysics and could organize
independently and plan as a body. There were two reasons for this, one basic
and the other practical. Being conscious of the attraction of everything relating to the Universe—so intimately connected with wanting to know who we
are, where we came from, where we are headed, whether we are alone—we
understood that we had to exploit this sense of awe in order to spread scientific knowledge in popular culture, so polluted with astrology and other pseudoscience. Rather than wait for knowledge to filter through slowly in school
textbooks, we also felt obliged to report in a direct form to the public that was
paying us for the discoveries that we were making. At the same time, we
wanted to make ourselves known to the public so that it could see what purpose was being served by all those domes that were sprouting like white mushrooms on the mountaintops of the Canaries.
For all these reasons, from the start we held regular open days at the
Observatories, gained media coverage, gave talks, and made ourselves available on request. Since there were so few of us at the time, we took weekly
turns to act as ciceroni on visits to the Observatories. It took many years for
researchers to be supplanted by specially trained guides.
I always saw an additional social benefit in this. It was important that it
should be Spaniards, preferably Canarians, who received the public at the
Observatories rather than foreigners operating those enormous and complex
telescopes in order to show that we too were people capable of discovering the
celestial marvels about which they had heard so much. In that way we would
we help our youngsters to break down our ancestral inferiority complex. They