82
De Gaulle’s celebrated visit to Canada at the end of the seventies had cemented
relations between France and Canada, with the result that the Canadians
entered into participation in the large French telescope, eventually named the
Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope, which saw first light at Mauna Kea
Observatory in 1979.
At that time the British were looking for a suitable site for their Northern
Hemisphere Observatory (NHO). The proposal for the creation of the NHO
dated from January 1967, the year in which Queen Elizabeth II inaugurated
the nation’s large (2.5-m) Isaac Newton Telescope at Herstmonceux (Sussex),
where they had not long before transferred the Royal Observatory, Greenwich,
later to be renamed the Royal Greenwich Observatory (RGO). Fred Hoyle, a
keen proponent of the NHO, wrote in his autobiography, ‘When I asked
Walter Baade what he thought of Herstmonceux as a site, he grinned in his
pixieish way and said, “It is like building a submarine in the Arizona desert.”’
There is even a reference to this observatory in one of his famous science fiction novels (The Inferno), a copy of which he signed for me many years later
during his visit to the IAC. Our British colleagues would later see fit to close
the telescope at its Herstmonceux site in 1979 to send it overseas to La Palma,
an enviable demonstration of the proverbial British pragmatism: they had the
capacity to change their minds unashamedly and relocate their national telescope to a site that was clearly better a mere few years after the telescope’s
inauguration. They never cease to astonish me.
In the summer of 1971, the British approached the Director of Teide
Observatory (the Chancellor of the University of La Laguna) for permission to
begin astronomical site-testing in the Canaries. At the end of 1972, J. Alexander
of the RGO, after having studied possible sites in the Mediterranean area,
wrote: ‘The ideal solution would be an international observatory on La Palma’.
In 1973 they put out feelers to the Spanish government regarding the setting
up of a British observatory on La Palma but with negative results (relations
between Spain and the United Kingdom were going through a rather rough
patch at the time). They considered Madeira and Hawaii but, since they were
truly set on the Canaries, they decided to move towards the idea of an international, or multinational, observatory on La Palma, for which purpose they
would need to rely on the recently established IAC (Chap. 15).
In the early seventies, solar physicists associated with the Joint Organization
for Solar Observations (JOSO) also decided to come to the Canary Islands to
carry out astronomical site testing. They were familiar with the atmospheric
conditions in the Izaña area, where Teide Observatory already hosted a solar
telescope, so they decided to make comparative measurements on the island
F. Sánchez
De Gaulle’s celebrated visit to Canada at the end of the seventies had cemented
relations between France and Canada, with the result that the Canadians
entered into participation in the large French telescope, eventually named the
Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope, which saw first light at Mauna Kea
Observatory in 1979.
At that time the British were looking for a suitable site for their Northern
Hemisphere Observatory (NHO). The proposal for the creation of the NHO
dated from January 1967, the year in which Queen Elizabeth II inaugurated
the nation’s large (2.5-m) Isaac Newton Telescope at Herstmonceux (Sussex),
where they had not long before transferred the Royal Observatory, Greenwich,
later to be renamed the Royal Greenwich Observatory (RGO). Fred Hoyle, a
keen proponent of the NHO, wrote in his autobiography, ‘When I asked
Walter Baade what he thought of Herstmonceux as a site, he grinned in his
pixieish way and said, “It is like building a submarine in the Arizona desert.”’
There is even a reference to this observatory in one of his famous science fiction novels (The Inferno), a copy of which he signed for me many years later
during his visit to the IAC. Our British colleagues would later see fit to close
the telescope at its Herstmonceux site in 1979 to send it overseas to La Palma,
an enviable demonstration of the proverbial British pragmatism: they had the
capacity to change their minds unashamedly and relocate their national telescope to a site that was clearly better a mere few years after the telescope’s
inauguration. They never cease to astonish me.
In the summer of 1971, the British approached the Director of Teide
Observatory (the Chancellor of the University of La Laguna) for permission to
begin astronomical site-testing in the Canaries. At the end of 1972, J. Alexander
of the RGO, after having studied possible sites in the Mediterranean area,
wrote: ‘The ideal solution would be an international observatory on La Palma’.
In 1973 they put out feelers to the Spanish government regarding the setting
up of a British observatory on La Palma but with negative results (relations
between Spain and the United Kingdom were going through a rather rough
patch at the time). They considered Madeira and Hawaii but, since they were
truly set on the Canaries, they decided to move towards the idea of an international, or multinational, observatory on La Palma, for which purpose they
would need to rely on the recently established IAC (Chap. 15).
In the early seventies, solar physicists associated with the Joint Organization
for Solar Observations (JOSO) also decided to come to the Canary Islands to
carry out astronomical site testing. They were familiar with the atmospheric
conditions in the Izaña area, where Teide Observatory already hosted a solar
telescope, so they decided to make comparative measurements on the island
F. Sánchez