The members of the Comité Científico Internacional (CCI) of the Canary Islands Observatories met today on the island of La Palma. The ISC is the body established in the International Agreements that gave rise to the Canary Islands Observatories managed by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and guarantees the effective participation of the User Institutions in decision-making regarding their use, maintenance and improvement. The meeting, held at the Hotel H10 Taburiente Playa, began with a minute's silence in memory of Professor Francisco Sánchez, founder of the IAC, whose legacy

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias is designing and developing, as ordered by the Spanish company Thales Alenia Space , the adaptive optics which will be a parto f the ground station for the GARBO project, the first Spanish geostationary system for distributing quantum keys by satellite. This is a decisive step in the field of secure quantum communication on a large scale, and will strengthn the position of Spain, and of Europe at the Forefront of this technology. Within the framework of the project the IAC will lead the development of the adaptive optics systems, and will participate

During October, the Adaptive Optics System team at the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTCAO) of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), in collaboration with the technical team at the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC or Grantecan), successfully completed the integration of the GRANCAIN instrument into the world's largest optical-infrared telescope. The installation was carried out at the GTCAO outlet on the telescope's Nasmyth B platform, a key step in initiating performance testing of the new adaptive optics system. This is the first scientific instrument to operate using the GTC's adaptive