Artist’s impression of the Kepler-78b Kepler-78b is an extra solar planet orbiting a Sun-like star located inthe constellation of Cygnus, some 400 light-years away from Earth. So far, the astronomers have characterized more than 1000 exoplanets, but Kepler-78b is a special one. According to the study published today in the Nature magazine, it has a mass and density very similar to those of the Earth. The authors of the study, an international team of astronomers led by Francesco Pepe of...

Following the recommendations to ASTRONET on the future use of Europe's 2-4m telescopes as presented in the ETSRC report, INAF and NOTSA, owners of the TNG and NOT telescopes on La Palma, Canary Islands, have agreed to enter into a closer collaboration. Here we offer observing time at both telescopes for the two communities in a joint call for proposals for the coming semester 2014A (AOT29 in TNG nomenclature; Period 49 in NOT nomenclature).See the link for details.

CALL FOR PROPOSAL TNG & REMalso featuring HAN-GTO, PAOLO and NOTTIME AOT 29 (2014A) is now open for proposalsApplications for observing time for the period March 1st, 2014 - August 31th, 2014 are solicited and should be submitted byFriday 15th November, 2013, 12:00 UT   DUE TO THE SITUATION OF THIS SEMESTER, TNG TIME IS (ALMOST COMPLETELY) ALREADY AWARDED TO GUARANTEED OBSERVERS AND LONG TERM, ONGOING PROGRAMS.2015A SEMESTER WILL BE SIMILARLY AFFECTED.THEREFORE, FOR THIS...

The complete schedule and allocations for the period August 1, 2013-February 28, 2014 (AOT28 and 2013B) are now online.

CTAC 2014A is now open and will close on 28 February 2013. Please see the CTAC 2014A page here. This information is also linked from the Trans-National Access page. TNG contribution to this transnational project is again 14 nights per semester.We remind that, to ensure equitable and competitive review of all eligible proposals at the TNG and all other European telescopes, the TNG Board also decided that ALL non-Italian proposals MUST be submitted through the OPTICON common proposal and...

On Friday 15th February 2013, amateurs and professional astronomers put their eyes on the near-Earth asteroid 2012 DA14. The approach of this small object (estimated size ~ 50 m) to the Earth was the closest ever predicted. During this event the object was at about 27.700 km above Earth's surface, which means it was inside satellite's geostationary orbit (~ 35.800 km). Although fly-by of the Earth by objects of the size of 2012 DA14 are not so rare, the short distance made it an...

Two new extrasolar planets have been identified and characterized thanks to combined observations from the Kepler space telescope and the spectrographs SOPHIE and HARPS-N respectively mounted at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence (France) and the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (Italy). These two planets are among the first ones detected with HARPS-N. The team that announced these planets obtained time on the Italian telescope through the OPTICON program that share nights of European...

Selection procedure by qualifications and possible interview for the assignment of two post-doc research grants entitled:"Analysis of HARPS-N data in the framework of GAPS Project". For details, please follow the link.

Astronomical Observatory of Padova solicits applications for a fellowship, for graduated students, on "Study and first implementation of a educational project in the field of extrasolar planets and relative instrumentation within the GAPS project at TNG.Deadline 7.05.2013For more information (in Italian) see the link