INAF Arcetri Journal
The monthly newsletter of the INAF Astrophysical Observatory of Arcetri
The monthly newsletter of the Arcetri Observatory is back with a new, completely web-based edition, easy to navigate and rich in hypertext content. Its purpose is to go through and highlight the main news concerning our Observatory: technological milestones, scientific news, grants, awards, projects updates, events and more.
The main target audience of INAF Arcetri Journal is the internal community, but anyone can have access to it. It is a useful tool to keep internal communication active and have a constantly up-to-date flow of information, in order to optimize the impact of our activities in our community and INAF at large, to other stakeholders and to society.
Rossella Spiga, INAF Arcetri Journal editor
Board 2024: Simone Esposito is the Director of the INAF Astrophysical Observatory of Arcetri from January 2024 to December 2026. Elena Amato is in charge as a Deputy Director.
Members of the Observatory Council are: Edvige Corbelli (RSN1), Germano Sacco (RSN2), Aldo Dell'Oro (RSN3), Giovanni Morlino (RSN4), Lorenzo Busoni (RSN5), Serena Donati (Administration), Antonella Gasperini and Jacopo Lenzi as elected members of INAF Arcetri personnel.
The year 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of the Large Binocular Telescope. With its two mirrors on a common mount, yielding light collecting area equivalent to a single 11.8m-diameter aperture and resolution provided by a 22.8m edge-to-edge baseline, the LBT remains one of the most powerful optical/infrared telescopes in the world. The LBT has been a leader in advancing observational technology reflected in telescope design, adaptive optics capability, and instrumentation.
The Arcetri Adaptive Optics group and the Large Binocular Telescope, Il Colle di Galileo, Simone Esposito
November 4th - A contract was signed to fund the conceptual study of the Wide Field Spectroscopic Telescope (WST), which could become operational in Chile after 2040. The consortium leading the WST project will receive three million euros to fund a detailed conceptual study over the next three years, from 2025 to 2027. The innovative WST project aims to build a telescope dedicated entirely to wide-field spectroscopic surveys in the optical band, covering all types of celestial objects—from distant galaxies to asteroids and comets within our Solar System. The project was selected as part of the European Union’s Horizon Europe Framework Program through a competitive call for research infrastructures.
Deputy Principal Investigator: Sofia Randich
Press release:
https://www.wstelescope.com/press-releases
June 5th - ESO has signed an agreement with an international consortium of institutions for the design and construction of ANDES, the ArmazoNes high Dispersion Echelle Spectrograph. The ANDES instrument will be installed on ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). It will be used to search for signs of life in exoplanets and look for the very first stars, as well as to test variations of the fundamental constants of physics and measure the acceleration of the Universe’s expansion. The agreement was signed by ESO’s Director General, Xavier Barcons, and by Roberto Ragazzoni, the President of INAF, the institution leading the ANDES consortium. The signing took place at the ESO Headquarters in Garching, Germany.
Principal Investigator: Alessandro Marconi
Press release: https://www.eso.org/public/announcements/ann24010
The INAF has won an ESO international call for proposals aimed at producing forecasts of optical turbulence and the main atmospheric parameters to optimise astronomical observations of the VLT and all the instruments with which it is equipped. The selected project, called FATE (Forecasting Atmosphere and Turbulence for ESO sites) sees the collaboration of the CNR/Regione Toscana consortium LaMMA (Laboratorio di Monitoraggio e Modellistica Ambientale per lo sviluppo sostenibile), which also provides meteo services for the Italian Civil Protection.
The FATE project began in November 2022 and entered the commissioning phase in September - December 2023, with tests to verify the technical and operational specifications. Once completed, it will enter in the operational phase in which ESO will be able to optimise observing strategies for the VLT and start planning those for ELT, which is currently scheduled to come into operation in 2028.
Principal Investigator: Elena Masciadri
Read the news: http://www.inaf.it/en/inaf-news/fate-project
December 2nd - The INAF Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri has officially joined the Mauve survey programme as a founding member. Scheduled for launch in October 2025, Mauve will dedicate thousands of observational hours annually to study stars within our galaxy, focusing on their magnetic activity, powerful flares, and the influence of host stars on the habitability of nearby exoplanets, enhancing our understanding of stellar dynamics and their impact on planetary systems. The INAF Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri will use Mauve to address key scientific questions within the framework of the ERC’s advanced grant project “StarDance: the non-canonical evolution of stars in clusters” (PI: Elena Pancino).
Leadership: Elena Pancino
Press release:
https://bssl.space/inaf-osservatorio-astrofisico-di-arcetri-joins-mauve/
Stellar Physics and Stellar Types | Sailing with the winds of HL Tau towards the origin of rings and gaps in protoplanetary disks
Francesca Bacciotti (PI), Claudio Codella, Davide Fedele, Fabrizio Massi, Thomas Nony, Linda Podio.
Stellar Populations and the Interstellar Medium | Anatomy of a Low-Metallicity Starburst
Leslie Hunt (PI)
December 5th - The PLATO Payload's Instrument Control Unit (ICU) has been finally delivered from Kayser Italia (Livorno, Italy) to OHB Munich for the integration into the PLATO Spacecraft Service Module.
This is the last step of the ICU design and development activities started in 2010 by the ICU Scientific Team to which the INAF Arcetri Space Technologies Team contributed thanks to the Unit System Engineering task led by Mauro Focardi, On-board Control Procedures (OBCPs) developed by Simone Chiarucci and Boot SW requirements engineering and testing managed by Marina Vela Nunez.
Read the news: http://www.inaf.it/it/notizie-inaf/consegna-icu-plato
December 5th - Proba-3 ESA mission lifted off on a PSLV-XL rocket from the ISRO Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India.
INAF contributed to the realization of ASPIICS (Association of Spacecraft for Polarimetric and Imaging Investigation of the Corona of the Sun), the main instrument: a visible light coronagraph, but also to the SPS (Shadow Position Sensors), the ultimate metrology system allowing the final positioning of the two spacecraft with a sub-millimeter accuracy. The design was co-engineered between INAF and the Irish company SensL (now On-Semi).
INAF Arcetri was involved in the co-engineering of SPS in conjunction with the Irish company SensL (now On-Semi). The "commissioning phase" will proceed switching on SPS and, at that point, Vladimiro Noce will be involved as an expert of the instrument to analyze and interpret the levels of luminosity measured.
Read the news: https://www.arcetri.inaf.it/articoli/scientific-news/proba-3-esa-mission-lifted-off
March 11th - The Instrument Control Unit (ICU) EM model has been delivered to AMC/INAF from Kayser Italia (ASI/INAF Industrial Contractor). Incoming inspection and acceptance test was successfully done at INAF premises under the supervision of ASI/INAF PA Managers. INAF is developing the Application SW that will be debugged by means of the reduced Spacecraft IF Simulator (SIS#1) and the ICU EGSE. The SIS is the black rack, behind the ICU box, in the picture. Both ICU EM and ASW will be delivered then in Autumn to RAL Space for AIT&V activities at Payload level, following a formal delivery from Kayser to ASI. A similar EM (AVM) model, will be delivered from ASI/INAF to ESA/ADS in January next year for test at Spacecraft AVM level.
Coordinator: Mauro Focardi
June - In one of the laboratories of the FERRET team of INAF Arcetri, a long measurement campaign took place on the M1 primary mirror of the ARIEL space mission (1.2x0.75 m, aluminium). Many results were obtained, among which the development of the fixing procedure of the mirror itself, its handling and finally the demonstration that through a system that allows the mirror to be overturned, a measurement of the shape of the surface can be achieved optical as if the mirror were in the absence of gravity, net of measurement errors and systematic errors.
Coordinator: Andrea Tozzi, Mechanical workshop: Gilberto Falcini, Luca Carbonaro.
Read the news: https://www.arcetri.inaf.it/articoli/scientific-news/m1-ariel-space-mission-measurement-campaign
Edvige Corbelli
IAU International Astronomical Union
Vice-President of Division H Interstellar Matter and Local Universe
https://www.iau.org/administration/membership/individual/7947/
Elena Amato
IUPAP International Union of Pure and Applied Physics
Member Commission C4 Astroparticle Physics
https://iupap.org/who-we-are/internal-organization/commissions/c4-astroparticle-physics/
Sofia Randich e Pietro Ubertini dell’Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica sono stati nominati “Ambasciatori della Città di Firenze” per avere promosso lo svolgimento della 44ma assemblea generale del Comitato internazionale sullo spazio Cospar, che si terrà a Firenze dall’1 al 9 agosto 2026.
and best wishes for retirement to
Carlo Baffa, Rino Bandiera, Gianni Comoretto, Luca Cresci, Gilberto Falcini, Silvestra Smeraldi
Firenze | December 2024 | Contacts