the Virtual Telescope Project

The Virtual Telescope Project is a network of robotic telescopes based in Ceccano, Italy, founded in 2006 to bring live views of the night sky to audiences anywhere in the world.

About the Virtual Telescope Project

Rather than a single physical site you'd walk into, the Virtual Telescope Project is built around remotely operated telescopes that anyone can watch online. Since 2006 it has streamed live coverage of comets, eclipses, asteroid close approaches, and other sky events as they happen.

Telescopes & research

Its instruments include a Planewave 17-inch corrected Dall-Kirkham astrograph, a Celestron 14-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, an Artec 10-inch astrograph, a Samyang 135mm f/2 astrograph, a Takahashi FSQ-106ED f/5 telescope located in Chile, and an all-sky camera. With this equipment, the project carries out research and monitoring of asteroids, comets, variable stars, supernovae, novae, extrasolar planets, and gamma-ray bursts, alongside spectroscopic work. It is supported by Software Bisque, Seeweb, and Telescope Live.

Location & getting there

The project's telescopes are based in Ceccano, a town in Italy's Lazio region, southeast of Rome. Use the map and directions above if you'd like to see the area for yourself.

Visiting

Because the Virtual Telescope Project operates remotely controlled instruments rather than a public observatory building, its main way of reaching visitors is online, through live-streamed observing sessions and events. For anything site-specific, contact the project directly through its official website.

See your named star from here

The same principle that lets a robotic telescope in Ceccano point at a comet millions of kilometres away also lets it point at the fixed coordinates of a named star. Name a star or browse the star catalogue to find where it sits in the sky.