Papal astronomer the Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno director of the Vatican Observatory since 2015, is looking through the ‘Carte du Ciel’ telescope a 19th century model with a focal of 360cm on June 2021 at the headquarters of the ‘Specola Vatican’ (Vatican Observatory) in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, on June 14, 2021. The Vatican Observatory, one of the oldest astronomical research institutions in the world, has its headquarters at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, outside Rome. For the first foreshadowing of the Observatory can be traced to the constitution by Pope Gregory XIII of a

This image could have imperfections as it’s either historical or reportage.

Papal astronomer the Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno director of the Vatican Observatory since 2015, is looking through the ‘Carte du Ciel’ telescope a 19th century model with a focal of 360cm on June 2021 at the headquarters of the ‘Specola Vatican’ (Vatican Observatory) in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, on June 14, 2021. The Vatican Observatory, one of the oldest astronomical research institutions in the world, has its headquarters at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, outside Rome. For the first foreshadowing of the Observatory can be traced to the constitution by Pope Gregory XIII of a committee to study the scientific data and implications involved in the reform of the Gregorian calendar which occurred in 1582. From that time and with some degree of continuity the Papacy has manifested an interest in and support for astronomical research. In fact, three early observatories were founded by the Papacy: the Observatory of the Roman College (1774-1878) , the Observatory of the Capitol (1827-1870), and the Specula Vaticana (1789-1821) in the Tower of the Winds within the Vatican. Thus it was that Pope Pius XI provided a new location for the Observatory at the Papal Summer Residence at Castel Gandolfo in the Alban Hills some 25 kilometers southeast of Rome. It is here that the modern observatory, entrusted to the Jesuits, was refounded in the 1930s with the construction of two new telescopes, the installation of an astrophysical laboratory for spectro-chemical analysis, and the expansion of several important research programs on variable stars. With the installation of a Schmidt wide-angle telescope in 1957 research was extended to other topics such as new techniques for the classification of stars according to their spectra. With the continuously increasing population of Rome the skies above the Observatory again became too bright. For this reason in 1981, for the first time in its history, the Observatory founded a second research center, the Vatican Observator