Star Parties in Spain

[Astropedro]

Ive heard of an odd meeting in the Fuengirola area on the Costa Del Sol but was wondering if there's anything that gets organised around the Estepona area or Duquesa where I live.  Our Astronomy experience so far in Spain has been a very steep learning curve to say the least so far.  I think this is partly due to the fact that we do not know anyone in our area that shares a love for this fabulous hobby. With this in mind, are there any SGL members near us that would like to arrange an observing session or a meet of some kind?  Failing that, we can organise something our end if we can get some people interested.  There are some dark skies within 10 minutes drive from where we live.

Just thought I would raise this up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes it!

Pete

[swag72]

Hi Pete - I know how you feel, it can be rather solitary out here!!

I have an excellent Local Astronomy Society nearby, but sadly my Spanish is not sufficient yet to really get any benefits from it. Anyhow I digress ......

Have you looked at this?

http://www.astronomycostadelsol.com/

[Astropedro]

Hi.  Yes, I stumbled upon that site about 3 years back.  They meet around the Fuengirola area and Mijas.  Its about 45 minutes drive for me to get to them and I was hoping this thread might seek out some guys n gals a bit closer.  My Spanish is good but I would really like to find some fellow brits in my area if possible.  Maybe I should build a site or start some threads in the relevant sections on here.

Well...good luck up in Alicante my friend.

Pete

[JB80]

We have a few Spanish members now on SGL, maybe a Spain social group is in order?

We do seem to be spread a bit thin though as it's a big country. When I get back on the PC I'll have a look and see what I can find, I'm sure I have seen some stuff down south before.

There are some excellent amature web sites I have seen locally here so there must be a thriving Spanish astro community, as Sara says though language is probably the biggest hurdle.

There is one expat group near me that advertises in a paper but they meet at 3:30 in the afternoon on a Wedensday at a pub which is great if you are retired but rules me out completely.

I think it'd be nice to have a Spanish SGL star party though, if there was enough interest maybe I'd be up for it.

[Astropedro]

Hi Jarrod.  We do indeed seem to be spread a tad thin!  I have lived here in La Duquesa on and off for 11 years over the last 2 decades and I dont know anyone else that owns a telescope.  At least not one that they point at the sky!......dont go there!....lol.

I see you are in Alicante.  A few hours drive for me Im afraid.  Spread very thin indeed it would seem.  Well at least we can chat about our hobby on here if nothing else.  Nice site by the way.  I use weebly too for any sites I build.

     Lets see what more interest this thread gets and go from there I suppose regarding a social group or possibly a meet at some wild extravaganza at a later date!

Pete

[Qualia]

Aragón bound astronomer here. Don't own a car. Don't know anyone into astronomy. Spanish isn't a problem. Be open to a star party, but it'll make sense to have it nearer the Spring/Summer when we're almost guaranteed 6/7 months of almost clear skies.

[Astropedro]

Aragon hey! Good skies up there I assume?  April on-wards would be best I agree.  I find myself too busy in the summer to do any astronomy as my company is based in the tourism sector.  16 hour days are not uncommon for my wife and I during July, August and September.  But then we get to play golf by day and astronomy by night in the quiet winter months.  A trade off Im willing to accept!

As we are so scattered it would have to be a damn good star party to attract us all and in a place where we can all get to in a reasonable amount of time.

Pete

[lennylovit]

Hi we spend a good few weeks a year in Casariche about an hr north of Malaga and I go up the mountains by Antequera , its a bit of a treck from us but in the El Tornillo del Torcal its high up and good large carpark and an observatory , I try and go up on every visit to spain ,

Lenny

[JB80]

Hi Jarrod.  We do indeed seem to be spread a tad thin!  I have lived here in La Duquesa on and off for 11 years over the last 2 decades and I dont know anyone else that owns a telescope.  At least not one that they point at the sky!......dont go there!....lol.

I see you are in Alicante.  A few hours drive for me Im afraid.  Spread very thin indeed it would seem.  Well at least we can chat about our hobby on here if nothing else.  Nice site by the way.  I use weebly too for any sites I build.

     Lets see what more interest this thread gets and go from there I suppose regarding a social group or possibly a meet at some wild extravaganza at a later date!

Pete

Hi Pete, we have only been here for 6 months now so are really still finding our feet, don't really know anybody around here let alone anyone with a scope too.

Yeah it's a bit of a drive but as you say at least we can try and give some assistance online but I understand how seeing things in person can help a great deal.

Thanks about the site, I should spend a bit more time finishing it, I was inspired to use weebly after seeing Sara's(swag72) site. Very easy to use.

Maybe start a site for your local area and see if there is any interest, it could be a good idea.

Hopefully there is some interest, It'd be great to get some local feedback too.

Have you tried U3A?

They have an astronomy group but no idea how close they are to you.

http://www.u3a.es/content/astronomy-club

Then there is always Gib, http://www.gibastrosoc.org/

They probably organise trips to Spain and may be able to put you in contact with someone local.

Just a couple of ideas really.

[Qualia]

For you guys in the south-east of Spain, what's your night skies like? I ask because my girlfriend may have to move down that end, situated almost exactly between Alicante and Valencia. I'm looking at the contamination map, and even out in the sticks, it looks just a tad better than I'm getting in the city up north. Is that about right? 

[JB80]

Whereabouts?

It's a bit more hilly up that way which may help obscuring lights.

Well if I look on avex I'm in a crossover area between yellow and pink. In real terms I can faintly see the milky way overhead but it starts to get lost in the light dome of Alicante to the south.

Still considering I can count 11 street lights from yard I think that's reasonable seeing. It helps though that we are out of the village on an urb surrounded by flat farmland.

[Qualia]

Nothing is guaranteed at the moment, JB, but if she did have to move it would be up near Agullent. Residence needn't be in the town itself, anywhere within half an hour's drive would be fine. The thing that surprised me was that although a relatively industrial area, the town has a population of only about 3,000 and still shows orange on the LP map. That's pretty much what I can expect just a 10 minute bus-journey out of the city which as you can appreciated shocked me a little. The good news is, they seem to have some lovely looking villas around the area which rent-wise cost the same each month as a show-box cage flat up this end. Swings and round-abouts I guess.

[swag72]

Looking over Valencia to the South for me is pretty bright, but most of my stuff is done in the East looking over a national park, so passable! Saying that though I have little to compare it with. When I was in Benidorm in November for a couple of nights it was pretty awful - The LP not Benidorm

[Nigele2]

Wish you guys good luck but as JB80 said it is a big country.  I have a flat in Asturias on the north coast (good skies out of the village but we get more cloud and rain than most of Spain), spanish family in Madrid (useless for star gazing due to LP and contamination), and step daughter and diving base on Tenerife (and high up Teide is really good).  I've chatted to a few spaniards on some spanish forums so they are about and quite enthusiastic - but not a lot of English spoken there from what I've seen.

In Tenerife I was even lent a telescope to see Venus two years ago.  Sadly only one EP but my first real go with a scope. Tried to spot migrating whales with it but didn't even see a dolphin (plenty about) let alone a whale.  Unlike planets they just don't stick to the planned route      

[JB80]

Nothing is guaranteed at the moment, JB, but if she did have to move it would be up near Agullent. Residence needn't be in the town itself, anywhere within half an hour's drive would be fine. The thing that surprised me was that although a relatively industrial area, the town has a population of only about 3,000 and still shows orange on the LP map. That's pretty much what I can expect just a 10 minute bus-journey out of the city which as you can appreciated shocked me a little. The good news is, they seem to have some lovely looking villas around the area which rent-wise cost the same each month as a show-box cage flat up this end. Swings and round-abouts I guess.

Well Qualia, which ever way things pan out for you and your girlfriend I wish you all the best.

According to the LP that area looks marginally better off than where I am so I would imagine if you can find a place just out of town the seeing would be fairly good all things considered.

The rental and property prices down this way are pretty good, well good for the consumer that is. I don't think we would be able to afford/justify paying rent on a place like we have now in the UK or Belgium although we will probably move again in 6 months or so. We could halve our rent and still end up in a similar property, just elsewhere and maybe a bit closer to my wife's work. Not sure what that would mean for my LP situation though but I'm willing to make sacrifices so we can have things like internet easy enough.

[Qualia]

Thank you for your kind replies. I will let you know how it pans out but I'm kinda hoping for a move myself. I can cook a mean Paella and Fideua, so I'd like to see how the classics compare

[Stu]

This is probably stating the obvious, but have you looked at the SGL map to track each other down? You are spread quite thinly, but not all on there yet from what I can see.

https://www.zeemaps.com/map?group=810658#mappage

Stu

[Qualia]

Do you guys think it is worth setting up or asking permission to set up a Spanish Social Group? We're not that many, we're a pretty disperse group, so I'm not sure what we would discuss but a few interesting, astro-related things might crop up. Any thoughts?

[swag72]

I think that would be a good idea - I'm sure we could always find something to talk about and sometimes it may even be astro related  I've never found distance to be a barrier to sharing interests and helping people out.

[JB80]

I would like to have one if they would let us, there are loads of Spain specific issues and on top of that it's a popular destination for many in the summer months so we could help people on their travels too.

[Martin Meredith]

I'm up near Vitoria-Gasteiz so have the worst weather of anyone here   -- well, perhaps Asturias might have something to say about that; wall to wall rain since mid December so no chance to look for the new supernova yet.

There are some Spain-specific issues that would make it worth having a group on SGL e.g. best places to get equipment, stuff for DIY astronomy etc; and of course advising any SGL visitors where the best skies (and tapas/pintxos) are to be found. There's a dark sky reserve not far west of me in Burgos, for instance.

There's also an active Spanish astronomy scene and it would be great to see more of them on SGL.

I don't need much of an excuse -- work permitting -- to travel south, so if there's a chance of a meet-up count me in!

Martin

[Martin Meredith]

Slightly off-topic, but of relevance for us Iberian observers, here's a link to a light pollution map:

http://www.avex-asso.org/dossiers/pl/espagne/c-pi-v-a3.pdf

and other Iberian info (in various languages at base of page)

http://www.avex-asso.org/dossiers/wordpress/?page_id=173

Martin

[Martin Meredith]

And a newer interactive version of the light pollution map here:

http://www.avex-asso.org/dossiers/wordpress/?page_id=42

I wonder how accurate these maps are though. I'm in an orange-yellow boundary area on this updated map but my skies (at best) correspond more with their 'cyan' description (i.e. some structure in the milky way). I'd be interested to know whether other Spanish observers feel that this map portrays their sky conditions. Perhaps a case of over-smoothing in whatever algorithm produced this map?

Martin

[bingevader]

Aragón bound astronomer here. Don't own a car. Don't know anyone into astronomy. Spanish isn't a problem. Be open to a star party, but it'll make sense to have it nearer the Spring/Summer when we're almost guaranteed 6/7 months of almost clear skies.

You keep promising, and we're still waiting. 

I seem to remember it involving a wine tasting too! 

Cheers

[JB80]

Just a bit of a heads up and it's not much warning but I just received an email regarding the "XXI Congreso Estatal de Astronomía" which looks to be a big astro show/conference being held in Granada from May 1st  to the 4th.

Looks as though there will be supplier booths and plenty of talks.

Sound really interesting and wish I had more notice because not everyone can get to Granada that quickly.

Here is the link in Spanish if anyone is interested.

http://congresoestataldeast.wix.com/xxi-congreso-estatal#!home/mainPage