The Teide National Park is a protected area and a Unesco World Heritage Area, centred on Mount Tiede with a summit at 3.7km. on the Island of Tenerife. It has such good astronomical seeing that since 1964, it has been used by professional astronomers as a site for an astronomical observatory at 2.3km and operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias .
Today there are multiple optical, solar and radio telescopes operated (mostly remotely) my a many institutions from multiple countries.
I visited the site on 12th August on 12th August 2024. Whilst the Perseids was not the spectacular display I hoped for, but the night sky was. The horizon-to-horizon canvas of stars, the bright naked-eye arc of the Milky Way, was something I had not seen for many years.
Here are some pictures and (below) a timelapse video of sunrise over the observatory.
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