Gianluca Masi is an Italian astronomer.
He started his interest in astronomy at childhood, later becoming a professional astronomer, earning a PhD in astronomy in 2006. At the same time, he devoted a lot of efforts to science communication, on the international stage.
His professional interests include asteroids and comets, variable stars and extrasolar planets, with many contributions in all those fields. He was able to determine the date that Vincent van Gogh painted Starry Night Over the Rhone by studying the star placement.[1]
In 2006 he started the Virtual Telescope project (part of Bellatrix Astronomical Observatory), consisting in several robotic telescopes, remotely available in real-time over the Internet. Through this system, real time, online observing sessions are performed, sharing the universe with the world. More than 120,000 individuals each year observe the sky through the Virtual Telescope.
He received [2]a number of prizes and acknowledgements for his scientific activities.