La Hita or the dream of exploring the universe… from La Mancha
If we had to start this story as a true story, we would say "Once upon a time in a small town in La Mancha...". Yes, it sounds a bit quixotic, right? But deep down, it is. Because this is a story of dreams come true . Of challenges that could be unattainable and that, thanks to perseverance, become tangible. And it is that, for those who do not know, perseverance is the perfect weapon to face fears, concerns and fantasies: the story of Faustino Organero, neighbor of La Villa de Don Fadrique and passionate about everything that sounds like science, is proof of it.
Turns out that's where he has his home. La Hita Astronomical Observatory: AstroHita , for friends. A project that started many years ago in the imagination of a child and that today, three domes, several telescopes, all kinds of astronomical measuring mechanisms and various participations in scientific studies later, it is a reality. The origin? This one that we tell you now.
A MAGNIFYING GLASS ON A ROOF
That was the germ of everything. Faustino confesses it to us from the other end of the phone when we interview him first thing in the morning and he already he is busy at the observatory . He was about 16 years old when one day, playing football with friends, the ball ended up stuck on the roof of the institute. He, who was somewhat of a “mountaineer”, as he defines himself, ended up climbing to the heights to retrieve it. What was his surprise when he between the tiles he found a magnifying glass the size of his hand . What was that treasure doing there? "She was waiting for me," he says.
That that was his first thought has a clear explanation: it turns out that as a child it had fallen into his hands a book in which the constellations were described and how these looked through a small telescope . He had gone many nights to the outskirts of town with a friend to gaze at the stars. As soon as he had that magnifying glass in his hands, he knew that with it he would build his own instrument of observation.
And he did. In the most homemade way imaginable, but he did it: with his magnifying glass, and also with plastic tubes, plumbing pipes, an old washbasin, electrical tape and glue. Of course: “it lasted as long as the glue lasted, of course”, he confesses to us. His encouragement led him to want to make a bigger and better one, but the old "mili" got in his way and that dream was forgotten.
It was much later, with 35 years and after having forged a very complete working life that led him to set up his own business in town , to become a house painter and finally channel his career in the graphic design world , when he decided to take up that challenge. So he got hold of a 30-centimeter reflector mirror and there was no junkyard in the area that didn't know about him: he went to them in search of pieces that nobody wanted and that he was in charge of reusing.
But Faustino had always been high-minded; not to be put off by anything. So the day he decided that the telescope he would eventually build would weigh 1,000 pounds, there was only one small problem: where would he put it? And he put a remedy: he bought a piece of land on the outskirts of town and planted the roots of what is now the La Hita Astronomical Complex.
LOVE FOR SCIENCE
That has been and is the engine of this beautiful project and, broadly speaking, the life of this manchego whose desire to explore, know and learn has never had limits. He fondly remembers that May 3, 1999, in which he knocked down an old work box with a sledgehammer located in the place where one of the three domes that make up the observatory . "During those years I learned everything about astro-mechanics, astro-masonry, computing for the control of telescopes...", he comments with a laugh.
With the passage of time, that project grew to such an extent that became a point of reference : everyone who passed through the area noticed it, that place in the middle of nowhere where someone had already built two domes, and people started coming. This, added to the fact that the instrumental that he created was increasing, made Faustino feel the need to project it: pass on knowledge to others something he started to do organizing talks on astronomy and observations who came interested in the subject. This is how he met those who are also part of the project today: Fernando Alfonseca —engineer— and Leonor Ana —disseminator— They ended up leaving their lives in Madrid and going to be part of this dream for the people.
Thanks to that powerful perseverance that we talked about at the beginning, the observatory stopped being just a challenge achieved and became a benchmark on the subject. Today, from there, they work in four lines, the first, disclosure n: every weekend organize visiting groups to teach the universe . So beautiful.
The second is focused on schools , whose students illustrate the beauty of the cosmos through extracurricular activities.
The third way is aimed at the technological area : “Everything we have done in AstroHita has arisen, in some way, by fantasy, but we have also been developing a quite important technical capacity . For some time we thought that perhaps the data we collected could be of interest to science.” And so it was: for years they have been collaborating with researchers from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia in two studies, one of them focused on fireballs and meteorites —that is, in everything that disintegrates in the atmosphere— and another, known as MIDAS, which records impacts on the surface of the moon.
It was precisely thanks to the latter, and to the fact that the researcher in charge of the study recorded live from the observatory the greatest impact in history on the satellite, that even NASA contacted him to request the data . This was one of the three times in which the La Hita Astronomical Observatory has been named in the prestigious scientific journal Nature , although the most important came in 2017: “ Thanks to a series of measurements made from AstroHita, rings were discovered for the first time in history around a dwarf planet: Haumea ”, tells us excited Faustino.
Finally, the fourth way of working , in which they are putting great efforts at the moment, is waiting for the health crisis to allow them to continue with it. What is it about? To open the astronomical complex to tourism . That is to say: that anyone who passes through this corner of La Mancha has the option of stopping, visiting them, and discovering an exciting world that, for sure, will not leave them indifferent.
And it will not do so because contemplating the universe live is, as Faustino well defines, “ a highly emotional activity”. Get in touch with the universe , feeling overwhelmed, shrinking before the immensity of the whole... "you can perceive even for a brief moment how those who visit us feel the magnitude of what they are experiencing," he tells us.
When it is his turn to remember all the path traveled so far, the man from La Mancha confesses that it has not been easy at all. And it is that everything, absolutely everything that makes up what is practically his home, has been raised with their own hands in the most traditional way . “I always tell those who visit us at the observatory that this story serves to know that dreams come true. That you don't have to hope: you have to have perseverance . No one is born taught and you have to go step by step. The story will have to be applied.