Catania Astrophysical Observatory
The "M. G.
Fracastoro" Mountain Station
Serra La Nave (Mt. Etna)
General information
The mountain station M.G. Fracastoro of the Catania Astrophysical Observatory is located on the southern slope of Mt. Etna volcano at Serra La Nave (1750 m a.s l). It is about 30 km away from Catania and and 15 km from Nicolosi the last town on the road to Serra La Nave. The station, settled by prof. M. G. Fracastoro (director of Catania observatory from 1956 to 1968), started operating on June 1966. Its settlement marks the return of astronomy on Mt. Etna, after 80 years from the first installation of the Vincenzo Bellini observatory in 1880*. This new location is easier to reach and volcanic risk is much lower , but is still astronomically challenging. The sky quality is fairly good with more than 50 % of clear nights, an average seeing of 2 arcsec and a sky brightness of V~20 mag / arcsec2.
Facilities
The M.G. Fracastoro observatory can be reached by means of a
daily service of public bus from Catania and Nicolosi
(approximate time table: departure from Catania 8:00 am;
departure to Catania 4:00 pm, travel time about 1 hour; bus stop
300 m from the observatory). Car shuttle is also organized by the
Catania Observatory. Guest observers have free use of the
telescopes and hotel facilities, but have to provide for foods
before getting the observatory and to prepare meals by themself (
distance of the closest restaurants, about 3 km).
* The Vincenzo Bellini observatory, was settled on 1880 at 2940 m a.s.l. at the base of Etna main crater. But, due to the lack of a car road and large snowfall in the winter it was operating for about a decade, in summertime only. The building was destroid by a lava flow on 1971 when was already used as volcanologic observatory.
The Buildings
The main buildings include:
The guardian house
The dormitory and office building
The dome of 91-cm telescope
The dome of 61-cm telescope
The dome of the APT-80 and the meteo post
Telescope time allocation
The telescope time is allocated by a local committee on the base
of scientific merit of the proposal. The scheduling is made on a
trimester basis, i.e. January, April, July and October.
Applications can be submitted any time, but the deadline for each
trimester is 15 days before the beginning of the
trimester: 15 December, 15 March, 15 June, 15 september. The application
form is here(*) available. Observations at the APT80 are made
on service, upon agreement with a staff member of the
Catania Astrophysical Observatory, who will take care of
observations scheduling and data retrieve.
(*) Click here to retrieve the form: slnform.zip or slnform.tar.gz
List of publications based on data
collected at the M.G. Fracastoro station
Statistics
