Brief News

2nd July 2025

Last Monday, June 30th, was "Asteroid Day." Calar Alto is part of ESA's Planetary Defense project, so we joined in the celebration. Using our smallest telescopes, the 1.23 m telescope and the Schmidt camera, we are discovering new objects while refining the orbits of known asteroids.

David Alexander Kann, a former researcher at IAA-CSIC and common user of the Calar Alto telescopes, has passed away on March 10th, 2023. He will be dearly missed by her/his many colleagues at the observatory and all over the world.

Dr. Kann was an expert in the field of transient phenomena (gamma ray bursts, kilonovae, ...) with hundreds of publications based on multi-wavelength data taken at many ground- and space-based facilities.
Alex was also an expert in cats and heavy metal music. One of his closest collaborators describes him as "an impressive astronomer" and "the sweetest person I've ever met".

Rest in peace, Alex.

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.