The World’s Top 10 Stargazing Spots
The Landscape: The rolling hills of Tuscany—already well known for their terrestrial beauty—are one of the first places where 17th-century astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei first turned his seminal invention, the refracting telescope, to the sky.
The Skyscape: Tuscany is the perfect place to view some of the very space phenomena that Galileo first observed—like sunspots, the mountainous surface of the moon, and Jupiter’s four moons (now known as the Galilean moons).
How to Experience It: In October 2009, Smithsonian Journeys (www.smithsonianjourneys.org) offers a weeklong “In the Footsteps of Galileo” tour, which brings participants to the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory outside Florence (on the very hill where Galileo spent his final years in exile). The tour also includes a visit to Florence’s Institute and Museum of the History of Science (where Galileo’s telescopes and compasses are displayed) and to a variety of other Galileo-related sites in Padua, Venice, and Pisa.
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