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This will be my home for the next seven days.

It's the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory - a collection of telescopes on the island of La Palma.

Most housed in gleaming white and silver domes, they loom over the Atlantic Ocean atop a volcano in the Canary Islands.

I'm here making films for an upcoming series called Deep Sky Videos.

The videos are still in production (that's why I'm in La Palma) but I thought it might be fun to share a daily diary of what's going on.

I arrived at lunchtime today. The first view of La Palma (below) was the island's peak and observatory poking through the mist and clouds.

The fact the peaks reach through the clouds is a major reason the observatory was built here.

The observatory is a collection of telescopes operated by different groups. But my host is the Isaac Newton Group (ING) of telescopes.

In the afternoon I met ING director Marc Balcells (right), who showed me inside the two main telescopes: William Hershcel and Isaac Newton.

I must admit being staggered by the size of the former. It was much bigger than I expected. Cavernous!

After recording some enjoyable interview clips with Marc (videos soon) he left and I checked into my accommodation on the volcano's flank.

But not before snapping the photo below, which I love.


As the sun sets, it shows the island's immense shadow being cast across the ocean.

You really should check out the detail on Flickr.

Over the next few days I hope to film much more of the telescopes and record some observations of objects in space.

I'm also considering going outside tonight to attempt some night-time photos, though the howling wind is making me think twice.

Stay tuned for more tomorrow.

Roque de los Muchachos Observatory is run by The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. I am being hosted by the Isaac Newton Group of telescopes. The videos from this trip will appear on Deep Sky Videos: YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

Click here for diary day one.
Click here for diary day two.
Click here for diary day three.
Click here for diary day four.
Click here for diary day five.
Click here for diary day six.
Click here for diary day seven.
Click here for diary day eight.

This week I posted a video about Dmitri Mendeleev's business card, which we were lucky enough to be shown at The Royal Society archives.

I also wrote a short blog for The Guardian website which included some nice pictures.

But I thought I'd post a couple of extra pictures here on my own blog.

Here's a cheeky picture of Mendeleev's card, with Professor Poliakoff's beside it.

And here's Mendeleev's card flanked by a couple of Periodic Table of Videos promotional URl cards!


Here's the video:

Two new videos have gone up this week for the Numberphile project.

They are 69 and 6174.

The first to be uploaded was 6174, featuring Professor Roger Bowley's discussion of the so-called Kaprekar Constant.



For the second video this week I let the public decide via a vote on Facebook - the options were 31, 69 and 153.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the choice was 69.

In this video Professor Laurence Eaves discusses why 69 is the highest number you can factorialize on a standard pocket calculator.



Follow Numberphile on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.

For The Periodic Table of Videos, there can be no bigger story than a new element on the table.

Except, of course, TWO new elements!

This week it was revealed that two new names have been proposed for elements 114 and 116.

They are Flerovium and Livermorium.

We did not post our video as quickly as usual (because I was away filming in Oxford).

However this went up last night.



If this topic interests you, here are a few other videos worth looking at.

I always insist that my Bibledex series is NOT aimed at Christians.

The videos - about every book and various vereses in the Bible - are targeted at a neutral audience.

Basically anyone who just wants to find out what's in the book - some background to its history, geography, possible writers, trivia, interpretations, etc.

However Google's automated advertising is perhaps being overly optimistic by plastering the YouTube channel with advertisements targeting single Muslims!?

I now some people with Muslim faith watch the videos - but I'm not sure they're too numerous?

PS: See an earlier blog post about amusing advertising on my videos.

I just read that NASA's New Horizons probe is now closer to Pluto than any previous spacecraft.

The old record was held by Voyager 1.

But New Horizons still has quite a wait before its rendezvous with the non-planet...

So to kill some time, why not watch our earlier Sixty Symbols video about Pluto.



And here are our videos on all the planets.

Chuffed to receive this picture from Sydney-based chemistry teacher Gary Molloy and his students.

We visited Mr Molloy in Sydney earlier this year at St Aloysius College.

The school has an extraordinary view over the harbour, allowing us to film this video.



And here's a picture of Professor Poliakoff with Mr Molloy at the school.


Click here for a full playlist of our videos from Australia.