Time Lapse Video Shows Milky Way Overlooking Sahara Desert and Canary Islands from Mount Teide

The Mountain from TSO Photography on Vimeo.

The Mountain by TSO Photography

This time-laps video was filmed between April 4th and April 11th, 2011.
The publisher had the pleasure of visiting El Teide — Spain´s highest mountain (12,198 ft, 3718m), which is one of the best places in the world to photograph the stars and is also the location of Teide Observatories, considered to be one of the world´s best observatories.

The goal was to capture the beautiful Milky Way galaxy along with one of the most amazing mountains known — El Teide.

Even thought ta sandstorm prevented the camera operator Terje Sørgjerd from seeing what was happening, the camera managed to capture a sandstorm over the Sahara desert, which was backlit by Grand Canary Island. That’s what produced the golden clouds in the images. The Milky Way was shining through the clouds, making the stars sparkle in an interesting way.

Midway up the mountain are the telescopes of the Observatorio del Teide. Opened in 1964, Observatorio del Teide became one of the first major international observatories, attracting telescopes from different countries around the world because of the good astronomical seeing conditions. Two professional observatories, Teide Observatory on the island of Tenerife and Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma, have been built on the islands.

The Canary Islands is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries is one of Spain’s 17 autonomous communities and an outermost region of the European Union. The islands include (from largest to smallest): Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, La Palma, La Gomera, El Hierro, La Graciosa, Alegranza, Isla de Lobos, Montaña Clara, Roque del Este and Roque del Oeste. The islands have a subtropical climate, with long warm summers and moderately warm winters.