November 4– Sunset and Star Gazing

Our first excursion today is not until late afternoon so we spent most of the day in the hotel room working on photos and future vacation planning.  We did take a walk into town to find a place for lunch.  The place we picked ended up having some signs on the ceiling.  Mary liked this one (plus it was right above her so she didn’t have to get up to take a picture).

We were picked up about 4:30 for our Star Gazing tour.  The van drove up into the Teide National Park where we stopped for views of Mt Teide, an active volcano and the tallest mountain in Spain.  

We were there for the sunset.  So were four tour buses and the three other vans in our group.  There was quite a group of people. 

We were above the clouds so the sunset colors were not streaked through the sky but it was still a pretty awesome experience.

They set up special telescopes so that we could look directly at the sun.  We were actually able to see some of the sun flares along the perimeter of the sun...they are very tiny compared to the size of the sun.

It was a challenge to photograph the sunset.

After sunset we went down the hill a ways to a picnic area.  By then it was getting dark and the guides led us to the bathrooms and then the picnic area via lamplight.  Dinner was ok, a pasta dish and a chocolate croissant type dessert.

Then it was back up the mountain for star gazing.  The tour guides had three telescopes and our first observation was of Saturn with its rings.  That was really awesome.  The Saturn photo was taken by the tour group...not us.

Then they pointed the scopes to various objects in the sky including nebula, twin clusters, and the Milky Way.  It was rather cold out but we had brought all of our Canada cold weather gear so we weren’t too cold.  The viewing was breathtaking with a totally cloudless sky overhead.  So many stars.