Wide fields

This morning the moon passed in front of the planet Venus, hiding it. In this shot, at the top of the frame, the two object are visible few minues before the occultation began above the bell towers of the Sant'Antonio chuch (the saint of Padova). Many clouds were present at the time of the event and the Moon was visible only for few minutes.

The buck moon is the first full moon in the summer. This time it's also the first supermoon of the year. Here we are near Pisa (Italy). In this photo (single taken photo - no composition) the moon is near the Caprona Tower: a nineteenth-century copy of the tower of the ancient castle existing in the mid-eleventh century, mentioned by Dante in "Inferno" and dismantled by Florence in 1433. The tower commonly called “Torretta” is located on the top of a rocky spur, in a highly suggestive position. In the foreground we can savor the summer with the round bales which stand in front of a IX century church.

Two lights near the Leaning Tower of Pisa, this is how the conjunction was visible from "Piazza dei miracoli". Galilean satellites can be observed near Jupiter in this photo. In order from bottom: Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto. To have the planets and the tower in focus at the same time I had to use a narrow aperture, for this reason you can see the diffraction spikes around Venus.

The day of the conjunction between the ZTF comet and Mars, I could not resist the temptation to photograph them. Having no star tracker, I decided to move to the "dark" zone near Pisa to attempt a wide-field shot. Surrounded by the noises of the animals in the Parco di San Rossore of Pisa, along a desolate road, I managed to get this combination of the images taken over an hour. The short exposure was able to partially limit the damage due to the lack of a tracking system. In the field you can see the comet, Mars, Aldebaran with a portion of the Taurus constellation, the Hyades, the Pleiades, a piece of the California nebula and many dark nebulae forming part of the molecular cloud of Taurus.

The 2022 lunar eclipse was unfavorable for Italian observers, with the totality phase completely immersed in the lights of dawn. This eclipse was exciting anyway. Trying to catch the eclipse I settled on the road that leads to Monte Serra, the highest peak in the Pisan mountains. This way i would have the moon descending above the illuminated plain of Pisa and surroundings. A misty morning and low clouds completed the composition without compromising the observation.

The 2021-Perseid meteor shower caught from "Alta Langa" in the late morning of the 12th of August. On the right you can see the milky way and in the center there are Jupiter and Saturn. The meteor at the top has a different angle from the others, in fact it is an "intruder": a meteor not belonging to the shower of the Perseids.

This shot is about the conjunction between the moon and mercury in the last light of the sunset, above the town of Verduno. Mercury is visible at the top right of the moon. It is possible to see the earthshine on the moon. The apparent calm of the photo hides a restless evening: a supercell was visible a few degrees further north and many lightnings were illuminating the coming night.

After the Venus-Pleiades conjunction that I photographed last year, here it is the conjunction of the red planet, Mars, with the Pleiades. I used a fixed tripod. Therefore, I could not raise the exposure time as well as 1 second to prevent the effect of the terrestrial rotation on the stars from becoming visible. The photos were taken from the city center.

The 96% waning gibbous moon, observed by the Lungarni, the so-called streets along the Arno river, appears behind the Pisan mountains. It was a clear evening of early March and the calm of the Arno allows the city to create an upside down copy of itself.

Time-Lapse of the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn together with the moon that set on the center of La Morra. This city is located about 3km from the shooting location. The brightest moons of Jupiter are visible, moreover you can see the oblong form of Saturn due to its rings and the earthshine on the moon. The movement in the middle of the video is a bit coarse but I realized too late that I was excessively oriented to the north to get the Moon. So, I moved the tripod by hand, too quickly, in the delay between two photos, and this is the result. Update 21-01-21: I re-elaborated more carefully the photos to avoid showing the not very fluid movement that I made by moving the tripod. I also added writings and soundtrack. By clicking on the images on the side, the two time-laps are shown.

The Neowise comet, in a large field, which stands among the first lights of dawn. The city visible in the photo to the left is Alba (Italy).

The transit of the International Space Station 30 minutes before the launch (then aborted) of the Crew Dragon. The trail of the ISS is visible not far from Mercury

Foreground of Venus among the stars of the Pleiades. This image was carried out without an astro-tracker from inside a house in the center of Pisa, during the Covid lockdown

Venus immersed among the seven sisters let himself be photographed even if we were all stuck at home. This photo was literally carried out from inside the house without astro-tracker. On the left there is Taurus with the Iadi and Aldebaran

The moon rises during the dawn by crowning the image of Pisa reflected in the Arno

In the same picture you can see the lebanon cedar, located in La Morra, and a blood-red moon in a cold and humid winter night. The second photo is a merge of various photos to catch the movement of the moon in the sky, but also the movement of the moon compared to the shadow cone of the earth

When I saw the wonderful composition formed by the moon and Venus at dawn in front of my windows I understood that I had to catch it in at least a single hasty shot

In this shot the red moon was leaving the totality phase. Together with her, there are Mars and the lights of the harvesters in the valley.

Star Trail from the Umbrian sky. The light pollution visible in the lower part of the photo is due to Gubbio (PG) less than 10km away

Difficult shooting due to light pollution. I took a really favorable night but it was still seen just with the naked eye, unfortunately.

The sky from the Aosta valley observatory taken in all its beauty. This photo portrays the Milky Way and the Summer Triangle.

Despite Madrid being just 70km away, I caught the beautiful Spanish sky in this starteril. I shot the photos from a remote Spanish village.

The most beautiful sky I have ever had the opportunity to gaze.

From the beautiful sky of the Italian Alps, I got this star trail with a double transit of the International Space Station. The light trail left on the camera sensor by the movement of the ISS is dashed due to the dead time between the photos.

This is my first star trail, but one of the best successful thanks to the scenographic first floor of the harvested grass collected in the bales