Multifunctional Observatory of Chianti
Admire the beauty of the starry skies between the wine hills
The Observatory is located inside the Chianti Botanical Park, a few kilometers from the village of San Donato in Poggio, in the municipality of Barberino Tavarnelle,
The Chianti Observatory is equipped with an 80-cm Marcon telescope positioned in the dome, for admiring the night sky, and is a place for knowledge-sharing and research.
Inside it, there is also a weather station and an INGV - National Institute of Geology and Volcanology station, for earthquake detection.
The Observatory was also the first one in Italy to be equipped with a multisensory pathway (tactile and auditory) that also allows blind people to approach astronomy thanks to audio synthesis produced by NASA for the planets and other objects in the sky. It was inaugurated in 2016 by Maestro Andrea Bocelli.
Public meetings and events are organized periodically and once a month the observatory’s doors are opened for evening tours. The observatory also hosts temporary exhibitions, especially in the summertime.
Furthermore, the Chianti Botanical Park extends around the facility: an 8-hectare, freely accessible area managed to safeguard the local plant and animal life, starting with the beautiful wild orchids.
