Acronym: INAF - OAR
Location: Rome (Italy)
Website: www.oa-roma.inaf.it
The Astronomical Observatory of Rome was founded in 1938 in the ancient Villa Mellini on the promontory of Monte Mario in Rome. In the same period, a new Observatory was founded in Monte Porzio Catone, which was supposed to house a large refracting telescope. The outbreak of the Second World War put an end to the project.
In 1948, the observatory in Monte Porzio was also assigned to the Astronomical Observatory of Rome. Since 1988, researchers from the Astronomical Observatory of Rome have been carrying out their research activities at the Monte Porzio Catone site, which offers an optimal structure from an organizational point of view.
The Monteporzio site includes some infrastructures dedicated to scientific outreach and education, such as the AstroLAB (Interactive Astronomy Laboratory open to the public and school visits), the LightLab (Light Laboratory), and the Monte Porzio Telescope (MPT), an educational telescope.
In the Monte Mario facility, the OAR coordinates the dissemination activity of the Astronomical and Copernican Museum and the Solar Tower. The main building is reserved for the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) headquarters.
The OAR is one of the 16 Astronomical Observatories and Institutes of the INAF. It counts on a wide variety of cultural interests in various scientific topics ranging from the study of the Solar System to that of distant galaxies and the Universe as a whole.
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