Roque de los Muchachos Observatory by Dan Westergren

Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (Spanish: Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos, ORM) is an astronomical observatory located in the municipality of Garafía on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands. The observatory site is operated by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias which is based on nearby Tenerife, and it is part of European Northern Observatory.

The seeing statistics make it the second best location for optical and infrared astronomy in the Northern Hemisphere, after Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii. The site has some of the premier astronomical facilities in the Northern Hemisphere, including the adaptive optics corrected Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope which provides the highest resolution solar imaging of any telescope, and the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias which is the world's largest single-aperture optical telescope as of July 2009.[2]