Nordic Optical Telescope live cam

The Nordic Optical Telescope is a 2.56-metre telescope at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, on the highest ridge of La Palma in the Canary Islands. It is run jointly by institutions in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, and it has been working on this ridge since the late 1980s.

The site was chosen for its air. At about 2,400 metres the ridge sits above the layer of cloud that the trade winds pile against the northern slopes of the island, which leaves the summit clear on nights when the coast below is overcast. The same ridge is the rim of the Caldera de Taburiente, so the telescope looks out over one of the largest erosion calderas in the world.

Its camera is pointed at that view rather than at the sky: domes along the ridge by day, a sea of clouds most afternoons, and after dark a horizon with almost no light pollution in it.