INAF – Astronomical Observatory of Trieste

INAF-OATS is one of the 16 sites of the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics.

INAF is an institution dedicated at pursuing and promoting scientific and technological research in astronomy and astrophysics and disseminating the results stemming from the research activity, it further promotes the technology transfer to the industry, aiming for excellence at international level.

INAF researchers are actively involved in many fields of modern astrophysics, from solar and stellar astrophysics, to galactic and extra-galactic astrophysics, to cosmology.

The research activity spans a large variety of approaches, including observational, numerical, and technological methods, and is also dedicated to designing and developing new instruments for ground-based telescopes and space missions.

OATs in particular hosts the project office and ground-segment coordinator for the ESA Euclid mission, the project coordinator for the ASI/EC HERMES Pathfinder, and the project manager for the CUBES and ANDES instruments, which will be part of the ESO Very Large Telescope and Extremely Large Telescope in Chile, respectively.

OATs hosts the largest INAF computing center to date, dedicated at supporting the Euclid and Lofar projects, as well as high-performance computing projects. OATs researchers actively collaborate with the CINECA national computing center on HPC projects.

• Laboratory for instrumentation (currently working on the refurbishment of the ESO/VLT FORS instrument).
• Electronics laboratory (currently under renovation).
• Specola Margherita Hack (Basovizza): open to the public and used for educational activities with schools. It comprises a multimedia musem, a 60cm telescope dedicated to observations of the night sky and a telescope for observations of the Sun.

OATs features several collaborations, both scientific and technological, with international Institutes.

From a technological point of view, the most important collaborations connect OATs with the European Southern Observatory (headquartered in Munich, Germany, and managing telescopes in Chile), with the European Space Agency ESA, located in The Netherlands, Spain, Germany. It is also involved in several projects funded by the European Commission and including various European partners.

From a scientific point of view, OATs researchers actively collaborate with colleagues and research groups from international institutes all over the world, including UK, USA, Canada, Argentina, China, Japan, Australia, India.

• OATs funds a “Margherita Hack” doctoral fellowship in collaboration with the Physics Department of the Triest University.
• OATs also hosts short-term scientific visits of researchers and students.
• OATs organizes a series of weekly institute seminars hosting about 40 scientists per year, from national and international institutes.

OATs hosts several PhD students and postdocs from abroad and the administration has therefore a solid experience in the necessary burocratic and administrative procedures, providing professional and efficient support in all the related matters.