Where Darkness Begins: Exploring the Universe with the Telescopes
7 June 2025, 21.30 – Villa Arrighi
By Roberto Ragazzoni (astronomer)
For millennia, the human pupil has been the only tool at our disposal to get to know the Universe. Everything changed when Galileo turned his gaze upwards with the first rudimentary telescope. Innovation has joined astronomy, and our pupils became larger and complex in a race to the depths of the sky. From radiotelescopes to adaptive optics, from Galileo’s eye-piece to the James Webb Space Telescope: a journey to discover the optical machines which allowed us to delve in the cosmic dark.
Senses involved
Biography
Roberto Ragazzoni obtained his degree in Astronomy at the University of Padua in 1990. Roberto worked at the Astronomical Observatory of Padua, at the Steward Observatory of Tucson (Arizona, USA), at the Center for Astrophysics of the University of San Diego (California, USA), at the Max Planck Institut für Astronomie in Heidelberg (Germany), at the Astrophysical Observatory of Arcetri, Florence, and at the University of Padua. Full Professor at the University of Bologna in 2000, he is currently President of INAF, National Institute of Astrophysics and Full Professor at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Padua. Member of the “Accademia dei Lincei”, of the “Istituto Veneto di Scienze Lettere ed Arti”, of the “Accademia Galileiana” and of the “Accademia dei Concordi”, is mainly concerned with optical instruments for Astronomy, from Ground and Space.