Brief News
The AMANAR project visits the Calar Alto Observatory
August 3rd 2022
A dozen of children from the Granada Association of Friendship with the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic have enjoyed the facilities of the Andalusian observatory.
In 2019, the GalileoMobile international organization and the Canarian Association of Friendship with the Saharawi People (ACAPS) launched the "AMANAR: Under the same sky" project, an initiative to promote and support the scientific education of Saharawi children living in camps of refugees in Tinduf (Algeria).
AMANAR, which means Pleiades in the Berber language, emerged as an outreach project to inspire the Saharawi community through the observation of the Universe as well as to develop scientific skills, with a special emphasis on teachers, children and young Saharawi people to make them feel part of a global community.
A disintegrating rocket and commercial satellites visible from Calar Alto
May 7th 2021
On May 4th, 2021, shortly before 11 pm (Central European Summer Time), the Calar Alto webcam pointing North recorded this video showing a curious phenomenon, visible to the naked eye. Daniel Marín, an expert in astronautics, identified that it was a Falcon 9 rocket from the SpaceX company, launched from Cape Canaveral (USA) on the same day at 9 pm CEST. This partially reusable rocket carried on board 60 satellites for the Starlink broadband project.
Galactic nova identified: scientific results from Calar Alto Academy 2021
April 28th 2021
The program Calar Alto Academy, in its 2021 edition, has allowed the identification of the galactic nova AT2021kgk, leading to the publication of the details and conclusions of the observation, and the spectrum of the source as well, in professional scientific channels.
The students and teachers from the University of Barcelona decided devoting part of their observing time of their practical work to obtain spectra of a transient source named AT2021kgk, whose discovery had been announced 3 nights before.
