Early Registration and visit to Museo La Specola
Date: April 9, 2018 - Monday
Location: INAF-OAPd, Museo La Specola (map)
Time: The early registration will start at 14:30. Two visits will start at 15:45 and 16:30 (the guided tour lasts about 40 minutes).
Established as medieval tower, Specola became Astronomical Observatory in 1767, and it is one of the main structures of INAF now. In the museum section, called the 'Specola' Museum, you can visit rooms and instruments used by Paduan astronomers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Guided tours for schools, groups and single visitors are organized throughout the year. The present-day tower was erected in the 14th century. In 1767 the building was converted into an astronomical observatory (specula). In 1777 the tower housed a lower observatory, 16 metres above ground level, and an upper observatory at a height of 35 metres. The lower observatory was named the Sala Meridiana; noon was measured on the meridian line sunk in the floor. The upper observatory has walls of eight metres, and its large windows are almost six metres high. The observatory remained in use until the 1930s, when the University decided to procure a large modern telescope; the site selected for the instrument was Asiago, on a plateau north of Padova, where the new structure was commissioned in 1942.
Astronomical Observatory of Padova is one of the main structures of the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF). The main activity of the Observatory is to perform scientific research in various fields of Astrophysics. The Observatory also contributes to advanced education, assists in the dissemination of knowledge and implements project of education and outreach of Astronomy. The Specola Museum follows to be a cultural landmark in Padova.
Botanical Garden
Date: April 10, 2018 - Tuesday
Location: Botanical Garden (conference venue)
Time: two groups starting at 18.30 (the guided tour lasts about 40 minutes)
The guides will accompany visitors to the Old Botanical Garden and to the Biodiversity Garden to discover the incredible variety and adaptability of plants. The itinerary starts in the Renaissance spaces of the hortus cinctus and then leads through the biomes of the new greenhouses.
Visitors will seek out the oldest species in the hortus simplicium, designed for the collection, observation and study of plants since its foundation in 1545, revealing a wide variety of plants (currently over 3,500 species are present). The Garden of Biodiversity hosts more than 1,300 plant species in uniform climatic environments in terms of temperature and humidity emulating the conditions of the planet’s biomes in an itinerary that also takes in anthropological items and interactive exhibits. This voyage of discovery of plants will lead visitors into their daily relationship with man: a source of nourishment and cures for sickness, the raw materials for clothes, objects, musical instruments and media for writing, in a virtual voyage from the Equator to the Poles to discover the ecosystems and associated plant species populating them. Biomes in geographically very separate territories in Europe, Asia and America but similar in climatic conditions (temperature, humidity, intensity of light).
Social Dinner
Date: April 11, 2018 - Wednesday
Location: Ristorante Antico Brolo - Corso Milano, 22, 35139 Padova PD (map)
Time: 20:00
