Tenerife in Canary Islands - These shots, reduced in size and JPG Optimized to speed download, were taken with a handheld Sony TR840E Hi8 camcorder and captured as still frames via an iMac computer. Image quality is superior to many entry level digital cameras and webcams.
We paid our annual winter visit to balmy Tenerife at 28oN; 17oW in November 2000 to escape the sodden UK countryside.
Tenerife skies: The Parque Nacional de las Canadas del Teide is a plateau at 2000m [~6000ft] altitude centred in the island beneath Mt Teide at 3718m [12176ft] - pictured. The Park is general above the inversion layer and cloud is rare here at this altitude in our experience.
The following images testify to the clarity of the skies within the Park close to the solar limb - an extremely sensitive test. Distant spiders webs and seed-heads can be seen floating in the wind and catching sunlight radially to the sun eclipsed by a foreground rock. From sealevel [or the UK] a white encircling veil of dust is commonly seen and the sky is a less intense blue !
Teide Observatory - Izana at 2386m [7814ft] 15km east of Mt Teide is served by the University at La Laguna in the north of the island.
Astro observations - none were seriously undertaken but planet Mercury was an easy object at dawn in the east as was the earth's shadow [including that of Mt Teide] in the west over the Atlantic. Earlier many stars to mag 5 were captured on the camcorder including one of Jupiter's satellites.
