From June 2 to 5, 2023, a face-to-face workshop has been held at the Calar Alto Astronomical Observatory, organized and paid for by Europlanet, on the use and observation through the Europlanet Telescope Network and, specifically in this case, with the 1.23 m from Calar Alto. The fundamental objective of the workshop, directed by Ricardo Hueso and Itziar Gárate (UPV/EHU), has been to familiarize the participants with the operation of this telescope, and the instrumentation associated with it, in order to facilitate access to these resources of the Europlanet Telescope Network by the amateur community.

1.23 m telescope (Calar Alto)		3.5 m telescope (Calar Alto)

The participants in the workshop, a total of 16 amateurs (Spain and Portugal) selected with the collaboration of the Iberian Hub of the Europlanet Society among relevant amateurs in planetary sciences, have shared experiences and have been able to make observations in two time windows with a total of 4.5 hours that the clear sky has allowed during these days.

The observation objects, two comets and several asteroids, had been previously selected based on their astrometric interest and other particular conditions inherent to them.

The workshop program has included a daytime session on the Europlanet Telescope Network, but most of the activities have been carried out during the nights of these days with observations and practices with the 1.23 m telescope and the Andor iKon-XL 230 camera, installed a few days before and that had not yet been characterized, something that could be done to a large extent during the course of the workshop.

Our friends from amateur astronomy in Portugal celebrate their "7th Concentration of Telescopes" on May 28 and 29. For some time now, and with the aim of strengthening ties, we have been talking about developing joint activities and participating in them as a single Iberian group. This is a good opportunity to strengthen this type of relationship under the sky and promote knowledge and coexistence among astronomers.

In addition to the outreach talks and scheduled cultural activities, the strong part of the meeting is the concentration of telescopes, so it is an excellent opportunity to attend with your own teams. There are also scheduled workshops on solar observation, photometry, telescope collimation and a used material fair.

These Conferences have the recognition of the Portuguese NOC of the IAU.

In this edition, a part of the program is reserved for Spanish associations, (Astronomical Association of Plasencia (Mintaka), Astróbriga of Ciudad Rodrigo and OSAE of Salamanca), in addition to the Federation itself.

Website - Program