Calar Alto releases to the astronomical community the widest integral field spectroscopy mosaic survey of the Great Orion Nebula. This survey constitutes the widest (both spatially and in spectral range) survey ever done of this object, and allows, for the first time, the study of the true integrated properties and complex structure of this canonical, nearest to Earth HII region. The paper presenting these data, by Calar Alto astronomer Sebastián F. Sánchez and collaborators from Spain and the Netherlands, was recently published and highlighted by the European journal Astronomy & Astrophysics on its April 1 issue. Images from the survey appear on the cover of this A&A issue. 

All the information on the 2007 Calar Alto Colloquium can be found here. Looking forward to see you in Heidelberg in May.

Imagine you are living on a planet belonging to a double star system. When the first star is descending below the horizon, the other one keeps on shining brightly in the evening sky. Also double sunrises and sunsets are possible when the separation between both stars is relatively small on the sky. For a long time, this scenario belonged to science fiction only, but today we already know some worlds where one could indeed observe this fascinating celestial spectacle...

A team of researchers from institutes all over the world and led by Mariano Moles (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, CSIC), is currently undertaking a large scale survey (the ALHAMBRA survey) at Calar Alto that will reveal 90% of the history of the Universe. The team has just made public an impressive colour image that reveals the prospects of this work...