One of the mysteries of the Solar System is the fact that the atmosphere of Venus circles the planet sixty times faster than its rotation period, generating permanent winds with hurricane-like speeds. The quest for the mechanisms that sustain this "super-rotation" motivated one of the most complete and detailed studies about the nocturnal winds on Venus close to its surface. This work, published on December 7th 2018 (and led by Javier Peralta involved in the Japanese mission Akatsuki),...

TNG staff is very pleased to present their CalendarStars one year more. Night by night the observations collected at any telescope around the world enter dark corners of our Universe. New technology instruments, original investigations, new theories are ingredients of the recipes to make the science a vital activity. The Telescopio Nazionale Galileo is proud to contribute to well advanced astronomical researches, thanks to the continuous efforts of its whole staff and to the fruitful...

The TNG staff in collaboration with the INAF-IAPS Roma, Univ. of La Sapienza, INAF- Rome Astronomical Observatory and the University of Catania successfully obtained the first light for the new improved version of the Silicon Fast Astronomical Photometer and Polarizer (SiFAP2).The Pulsar of the Crab Nebula (M1) and several other objects have been observed with SiFAP2 mounted as Visiting Instrument at the Nasmyth-A F/11 focal plane of the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo on the night of Nov, 14th...

One of the largest observing campaigns to date using data from a world-wide array of telescopes combined with several high-precision instruments, including the TNG planet-hunting HARPS-N (High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher in North hemisphere), have revealed an exo-planet orbiting the Barnard's Star. It is a red dwarf, a cool, low-mass star, the second one nearest to the Earth after Proxima Centauri (about 6 light-years away). Differently than Proxima, Barnard's Star is single....

The new LIGO-Virgo interferometers will enter into operations soon. The consortium informed that there will be engineering runs in mid-December 2018 (ER13) and March 2019 (ER14). The observing run O3 will start just after ER14. The figure sketches the updated schedule of the experiment. On October 1st, 2018 the ToO-category, Long-Term program entitled "Follow-up of electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave sources at TNG" led by Silvia Piranomonte (proposal code A38TAC_29), will...

Its name is Donatiello I and it is a new entry in the list of galaxies located in the neighbourhood of the Local Galaxy Group. This object was discovered in 2016 by the amateur astronomer G. Donatiello (Oria, Italy). It appeared as a diffuse unresolved source in images taken by Donatiello himself in 2010-2013 from the Pollino National Park (Southern Italy). Donatiello's equipment was a small 127mm refractor equipped with a CCD camera. In order to unveil the true nature of this source,...

CALL FOR PROPOSAL TNG & REM also featuring LONG-TERM PROGRAMS, GTO and NOT-TIME AOT 39 (2019A) is now open for proposals Applications for observing time for the period April 1st, 2019 - September 30th, 2019 are solicited and should be submitted byFriday, 23rd November, 2018, 12:00 UT   The available time offered at TNG via INAF-TAC is 12 (twelve) nights in the AOT39 semester.A detailed schedule breakdown is reported at the bottom. We will be accepting (few) Director...

Rup147 is one of the open clusters best suited for testing stellar evolution models and for obtaining precise and detailed chemical abundance information. Chemical composition, distance, age, proper motions were re-derived, allowing us to confirm that Rup147, with an age of about 2.5 Gyr and a distance of 300 pc, is the oldest nearby open cluster known. These results were obtained thanks to the synergy of photometric and astrometric information delivered by the Gaia mission with very...

Kepler_all_planets.jpg: Artist's view for a 'bunch of exoplanets'.Credits: NASA/W. Stenzel Kepler-1655b is a sub Neptune size planet transiting a star similar to our Sun. Thanks to the analysis from Kepler observations, combined with high-resolution spectra from HARPS-N, it was possible to determine an orbital period of nearly 12 days, a radius a bit larger than 2 times the Earth radii (Re) and a mass of about 5 Earth masses (Me). Densities of transiting planets may be derived from the...