INAF-OABO is involved in several technological projects for the design and construction of space and ground-based instrumentation. A significant team of researchers collaborates to the space project GAIA, one of the currently planned ESA Cornerstone missions, that will provide astrometric, photometric and spectroscopic data of very high quality for more than one billion stars brighter than magnitude V=20. A project started recently is EUCLID/SPACE, an ESA programme, in which INAF-OABO collaborates with the Department of Astronomy of the University of Bologna in the design of a near infrared spectrograph for the study of more than half billion galaxies over a large fraction of the sky. Regarding the ground-based applications, INAF-OABO is involved in the design and construction of instruments for present and future optical/infrared telescopes, i.e. the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG), the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) and the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). The most important projects in this framework are GIANO, a near infrared spectrograph for the TNG, LINC-NIRVANA, a near infrared imaging interferometer integrated with a complex adaptive optics system for the LBT, the Infrared Test Camera for the LBT and finally MAORY, a multi-conjugate adaptive optics module for the E-ELT. Another activity carried on at INAF-OABO is the site testing, for the monitoring of existing telescope sites and for the selection of the best sites for future optical telescopes. The technological research at INAF-OABO is characterized by a close interaction between the technical and scientific teams and by an effective synergy with the Department of Astronomy of the University of Bologna.

Research Groups

• GAIA
• GIANO
• Instrumentation for LBT and E-ELT
• Site testing
• EUCLID/SPACE