The Virtual Telescope: six years of stars, for all!

M42, the Orion Nebula

There are things which are unpredictable by nature. This is particularly true for those having the spirit of a pioneering adventure. These are the first considerations coming in my mind while I’m writing these few words to present the new Virtual Telescope website. At the beginning of this journey, we could not imagine at all the amazing reputation the Virtual Telescope, starting as a small idea, was going to gain on the international scenery.

After almost exactly six years since it was introduced (20 Aug. 2006), we wanted a completely new  internet “door” for our Project. These years we had enough time to study the old showcase and receive very precious feedback from our visitors: we tried to take all these inputs into account while designing the new web portal. For sure, it has been a very hard task, but finally we made it and now it is here, for you. Feel free to navigate it and tell us what do you think, as we believe we can really improve it thanks to your always precious suggestions.  We wanted it to be very easy to access, with substance instead of appearance.

Undoubtedly, the Virtual Telescope is today one of the most successful facilities in the world devoted to astrophysical science and public outreach. In six years, we had more than 1.300.000 unique viewers from about 200 Countries, served 2.011.000 web pages, registered 8.300.000 hits and a traffic of 335 Gigabytes. Considering that our project does NOT have any institutional support or financial funding, these are truly unbelievable results. We get money from our own pockets and from our supporters, both donors and users of our exclusive services.

We believe it is the format of our events to make the Virtual Telescope project a winning reality. Mixing our professional knowledge in astrophysics and science communication while keeping alive our veteran love for the stars and welcoming direct interaction with our friends is one of the reasons for this.

Thank you for making the Virtual Telescope Project so great, we are indebted with you for this, definitely.

Now, we need your enthusiastic support even more: new, exciting cosmic horizons are waiting for us. The journey continues.

Gianluca Masi
founder, the Virtual Telescope Project
Rome, Italy, 2  Sept. 2012

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