Along with the dozen Jesuit and diocesan priest-astronomers at the Specola, there are another dozen scientists from around the world who serve as Adjunct Scholars to the Specola. These scientists, all approved by the Vatican, work in fields that complement the astronomical work of the Specola, advancing our science and carrying forward the name and reputation of the Vatican Observatory. They can use the facilities of the Observatory… like getting time on our Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope in Arizona, or spending time at our headquarters in Castel Gandolfo. One of the most active of these Adjunct Scholars is Dante Minniti, who is in Castel Gandolfo this month. He writes:
It is very exciting and emotional to be here at the Vatican Observatory during the Jubilee, catching up with the Jesuits (old friends). It is kind of a withdrawal from our usually demanding busy world into a more peaceful environment, very repairing and inspirational for us.
At the same time, this allows us to have time to think and plan ahead. Having said that, nonetheless, this is a list of the activities that we are doing during this wonderful month at the Specola:
- Collaboration as Scholar of the Specola Vaticana
- Preparation of telescope proposals
- Organizationof two international meetings
- Replying to the referee report of a paper
- Revision of the proofs of an accepted paper
- Drafting a new paper
- Posting a paper at the arXiv
- Finalizing a large survey proposal
- Adquiring infrared data from ground and space telescopes
- Writing 4 letters of recommendation.
- Giving a talk invitada
- Refereeing an internacional proposal
- Giving an online course
- Collaborating with Maria Gabriela Navarro (INAF)
- And more!
Dante is a member of the Roman Galactic Plane Survey Definition Committee. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s Galactic Plane General Astrophysics Survey is a community-defined, 700-hour program designed to deliver the highest angular resolution panoramic view of the Galaxy through wide-field mapping, time-domain, and deep-field observations to enable a wide range of studies on Galactic structure, stellar populations, and variability.
Dante also recently published two papers:
- Near-infrared photometry of the central stars of planetary nebulae with the VVVX survey on arXiv Astronomy & Astrophysics – with Vasiliki Fragkou, Javier Alonso-García, Daniel Majaess, and Arianna Cortesi
- Investigating Phosphorus Abundances in a Sample of APOGEE-2 Bulge Globular Clusters also on arXiv.
