79
© 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_10
10
A Multinational Astrophysics Treaty
(1960–2014)
After we realized that the Canarian summits hosted exceptional conditions
for astronomical observing, we immediately set about broadcasting our results
in order to persuade those with new telescope projects to come and check
these excellent conditions for themselves. Their telescopes and knowledge
were vital to the fulfilment of our dreams. In the Spain of that epoch, thinking about getting money to build a telescope of our own that would be anything like competitive was simply a pipe dream, which made it all the more
necessary to attract foreign instruments and knowhow if we were ever to initiate astrophysics in our country. Here, I relate how we succeeded in formalizing through an international treaty the arrival of international astronomical
instrumentation.
Although our observations and data gathered during the seventies clearly
demonstrated the high astronomical quality of the Izaña area, it was essential
that these findings be independently verified by other site-testing campaigns
carried out by institutions from other countries. It was also necessary to make
comparisons of all the islands of the archipelago with summits above 2000
metres and to cover the entire visible, near-infrared, and ultraviolet regions of
the electromagnetic spectrum.
Right from the start of my international campaign I found that our foreign
colleagues were reticent on two points: dust from the Sahara Desert and the
Franco regime. It was a difficult task to overcome their hesitancy on both
these issues. For our part, all we could do was to demolish, with data, the
myth of harmful Saharan dust, so we added to our measurements of atmospheric transparency and optical turbulence data on dust in suspension.
© 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_10
10
A Multinational Astrophysics Treaty
(1960–2014)
After we realized that the Canarian summits hosted exceptional conditions
for astronomical observing, we immediately set about broadcasting our results
in order to persuade those with new telescope projects to come and check
these excellent conditions for themselves. Their telescopes and knowledge
were vital to the fulfilment of our dreams. In the Spain of that epoch, thinking about getting money to build a telescope of our own that would be anything like competitive was simply a pipe dream, which made it all the more
necessary to attract foreign instruments and knowhow if we were ever to initiate astrophysics in our country. Here, I relate how we succeeded in formalizing through an international treaty the arrival of international astronomical
instrumentation.
Although our observations and data gathered during the seventies clearly
demonstrated the high astronomical quality of the Izaña area, it was essential
that these findings be independently verified by other site-testing campaigns
carried out by institutions from other countries. It was also necessary to make
comparisons of all the islands of the archipelago with summits above 2000
metres and to cover the entire visible, near-infrared, and ultraviolet regions of
the electromagnetic spectrum.
Right from the start of my international campaign I found that our foreign
colleagues were reticent on two points: dust from the Sahara Desert and the
Franco regime. It was a difficult task to overcome their hesitancy on both
these issues. For our part, all we could do was to demolish, with data, the
myth of harmful Saharan dust, so we added to our measurements of atmospheric transparency and optical turbulence data on dust in suspension.