The EU-funded EDUCADO project (Exploring the Deep Universe by Computational Analysis of Data from Observations) at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) is organising a two-night astronomical observation school providing hands-on research training for early-stage researchers in astronomy and computer science.

Royal Holloway University of London leads a new breakthrough in the study of supernovae, with astronomers uncovering clear signatures of late-time shock interaction in the nearby Type II supernova SN 2023ixf, marking the first identification of such interaction in this event. The research, led by Dr Amit Kumar, utilised the newly commissioned WEAVE spectrograph on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) to obtain a spectrum nearly one year after the explosion. The resulting spectrum reveals intricate emission features that offer new insights into the complex processes shaping the final stages of massive star evolution.

ING Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2025B: https://www.ing.iac.es/astronomy/observing/2025B-AO.pdf

WHT Time Allocations 2025A Released.

Using the set of first-light observations from the new William Herschel Telescope Enhanced Area Velocity Explorer (WEAVE) wide-field spectrograph, a team of more than 50 astronomers, led by Dr Marina Arnaudova at the University of Hertfordshire, has presented the first WEAVE scientific results on Stephans Quintet.

ING Announcement of Opportunity for Observing Time in Semester 2025A: https://www.ing.iac.es/astronomy/observing/2025A-AO.pdf

Call for Proposals to the CCIs International Time Programme on the Canary Islands. More information: https://www.iac.es/system/files/documents/2023-12/CCI_ITP2024-2025_Call%20For%20Proposals_0.pdf

The WEAVE spectrograph, a powerful, next-generation multi-fibre spectrograph installed on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (La Palma, Canary Islands), was inaugurated on October 30th, 2023.

Yesterday, 30 October 2023, from the telescope itself at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma, the WEAVE instrument, a powerful state-of-the-art multi-fibre spectrograph, was publicly unveiled.

An inauguration event. WEAVE - A New Generation Multi-Object Spectrograph on the William Herschel Telescope. 30 October 2023, Roque de Los Muchachos Observatory La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain. Bringing together the WEAVE community to celebrate the start of the scientific exploitation of WEAVE.

The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING) and the WEAVE instrument team present the first observations with this new instrument. This is a powerful latest generation multi-fibre spectrograph which, in synergy with the Gaia satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA), will be used to obtain spectra of several million stars in the disc and the halo of our Galaxy, permitting in-depth archaeology of the Milky Way. In addition, other galaxies, both nearby and distant, will be studied, some of them detected by the LOFAR radio telescope, in order to get to know their evolution.

WEAVE, a robotic sky scanner in La Palma, has looked 280 million light years away to reveal the spectra of a pair of galaxies. PI Gavin Dalton from the University of Oxford and STFCs RAL Space explains more about this instrument and how it came to be. Find out more here: https://www.ukri.org/news/uk-led-robotic-sky-scanner-reveals-its-first-galactic-fingerprint/

The Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING) and the WEAVE instrument team present first-light observations with the WEAVE spectrograph. WEAVE is a powerful, next-generation multi-fibre spectrograph on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (La Palma, Canary Islands), now being commissioned on-sky and already generating high-quality data.

After a few initial problems, the image quality in the focal plane is now excellent, the spectrograph is well-focused and the other subsystems are working well enough to begin commissioning the LIFU mode of observations. That commissioning begins this week, and will be followed by science verification of the LIFU mode, and then, once the other sub-systems are ready, commissioning of the mIFU and MOS modes.

ING is pleased to announce that, on Wednesday 25 May 2022, the WEAVE prime focus unit was successfully mounted on the WHT.

A major telescope upgrade, which will allow a comprehensive census of the universe to answer fundamental astrophysical questions, is now close to completion.

WEAVE, een ingenieuze spectrometer met duizenden verplaatsbare glasvezels, is bijna klaar voor gebruik door sterrenkundigen. Dat meldt een team van astronomen en technici onder leiding van Scott Trager (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen). De spectrometer, inclusief de twee robots die de glasvezels in wisselende opstellingen leggen, is succesvol geinstalleerd op de Nederlands-Britse-Spaanse William Herschel Telescope op La Palma.

All the main components of the William Herschel Telescope Enhanced Area Velocity Explorer (WEAVE) - the positioner, fibres, spectrograph and detectors - have now arrived on La Palma and are being integrated with the telescope. After that, WEAVE will begin its on-sky commissioning phase.

On June 23, the new 6-lens, two-degree prime-focus corrector (PFC) arrived at the WHT. On September 11, ING celebrated WEAVE PFC first light, after images of Vega were obtained with the acquisition camera. On August 31, the WEAVE spectrograph arrived at the WHT and was installed in the GHRIL Nasmyth enclosure. Looking to the future, the fibre positioner with its full-fibre complement will soon complete tests in Oxford, for transport to La Palma in October. Delivery of WEAVE hardware to La Palma will be completed with the arrival of the detectors soon thereafter.

A paper is available describing INGs plans for how surveys and open time share the WHT time in the surveys era. We regret to inform successful proposers that completion of their programmes in 20A is not planned. Only in the event of serious setbacks with WEAVE integration we would consider carrying out such 20A scientific programmes, in service mode, during July and possibly August.

During the stand-down last November, the new rotator system was successfully integrated within the WEAVE Prime Focus Assembly, and then mounted on the WHT top-end where an exhaustive campaign of tests took place over several weeks. The main objective was to mechanically align the rotator with the optical axis of the WHT primary mirror.

This summer, the WEAVE rotator was delivered by IDOM to the William Herschel Telescope (WHT). At the WHT, the rotator was mounted on a elescope simulator, i.e. a rig allowing it to be positioned at any elevation angle, for a campaign of tests. The main aim of the tests was to verify the functionality and performance of the rotator before integrating it with the rest of WEAVE.

A science verification (SV) programme will be conducted, comprising small, well-defined SV projects from the WEAVE surveys and from the ING community. With this announcement, the ING and the WEAVE instrument consortium invite the ING community to submit letters of intent for WEAVE SV proposals.

In preparation for the arrival of the WEAVE MOS spectrograph, and for the first time in 30 years, the WHTs inner top-end ring (flip ring) has been successfully removed, craned to the ground floor, and the next day, re-installed on the telescope.

On 18 January 2016, the first completed component for the WEAVE project, the handling trolley, arrived at the WHT.

ING is establishing a European consortium to develop a spectrograph, WEAVE, for the prime focus of the William Herschel Telescope. WEAVE will be able to take spectra of up to 1000 objects simultaneously, within a 2-deg field of view. First light is envisioned in 2016.