Domes on the Papal Palace With the move to Castel Gandolfo, two new Zeiss telescopes were constructed on the roof of the Papal Palace; they had their “first light” in 1934 and were officially dedicated by Pope Pius XI in 1935. The dome visible in the bottom left side...
Zeiss Visual Telescope The “Visual” telescope is a Zeiss 40 cm refractor; this design allowed for high magnification of small but bright astronomical objects. It was installed under a large wooden dome 8.5 meters in diameter resting on the massive round construction...
Zeiss Double Astrograph The principal instrument of the observatory, the Zeiss Double Astrograph, was located in a rotating wooden dome 8 meters in diameter constructed on the solid foundation offered by the northeast corner of the palace. It consists of a refractor...
The Green Flash In the mid 1950s, observatory director Fr. Daniel O’Connell SJ and Br. Karl Treusch SJ (see photo on east wall) carried out research on the “green flash”: when the atmosphere is particularly clear and calm, the last segment of the sun at sunset (or...
Workshop on Stellar Populations In 1957 the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Specola Vaticana co-sponsored a workshop on the topic of stellar populations, an then-new topic that had implications not only for our understanding of how stars evolve but ultimately...
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