About us

Matteo Negri
Founder, author, science communicator and webmaster of the website

My name is Matteo Negri. I was born in Ferrara, Italy, in January 1978 and grew up in this city. After earning my diploma in electronics in 1997, I began my career at a prestigious company in the industry, where I still work as an electronics and firmware designer. Passionate about astronomy since childhood, I joined the Gruppo Astrofili Columbia amateur astronomy club in Ferrara in the spring of 1996, when the Hale-Bopp comet made its historic appearance in our skies. An active member from the very beginning, I joined the Board of Directors of the association in 2004, where I currently serve, together with my friend Davide Andreani, as director of the Occhiobello Municipal Planetarium. Besides handling public relations with institutions and visitors, I am also fully involved in the planetarium's science outreach as a speaker, and I organize its monthly program of talks for the public and for schools of every level, covering a wide range of topics from the international scientific scene. As the lifelong amateur astronomer that I am, I own two telescopes with which, whenever the Ferrara fog allows, I enjoy observing the night sky, with a particular fondness for systematic observation of the lunar surface and the deep sky. A chronic enthusiast of the history of spaceflight and, in particular, a deep connoisseur of the Apollo human lunar exploration program, in 2003 I created this website with a precise goal: to protect this extraordinary achievement from the ravings of Moon-hoax believers, refuting their baseless claims one by one. My passion for this subject has given me the honor of giving many lectures on the topic over the years, in a wide variety of public and private venues. My love for everything that can fly, in space and in the atmosphere, also led me in 2015 to successfully attend a professional flight school in order to earn my pilot's license, a long-cherished goal that I achieved with great joy and satisfaction in 2016. Besides being an electronics designer and programmer by profession, I also work on electronics as a hobby. In my spare time, in fact, I have designed and built many electronic devices, many of them dedicated to measuring and monitoring environmental radioactivity and radiation of cosmic origin. Building on this experience, in the summer of 2022 I built an environmental radioactivity monitoring station called EMS1. Installed at my home, it continuously monitors levels in the air and publishes them directly on the web. At the same time, applying electronics to astronomy, in 2006 I built for the association a fully digital automation system for the analog projector of the Occhiobello Municipal Planetarium (which was later inaugurated by astronaut Dr. Umberto Guidoni). To complete the work at the planetarium, in 2014 and 2023 I developed the 'Stellarium Skydome Control' software, still used to run today's digital projection system. This program makes it easy to interface with the open-source Stellarium software, running complex and spectacular astronomical simulations, full-dome projections and audio-video playback quickly and simply. Thanks to sophisticated hardware connected to the system, it is also possible to manage everything that happens in the planetarium dome, from the lights to the air conditioning. For several years I have also worked with the StratoSpera amateur team as payload specialist for the high-altitude radioactivity measurement systems. In this context I designed and ran the HADARP project (High Altitude Data Acquisition Radioactivity Probe), whose excellent results were also commented on by Luca Di Fino, researcher at the CNR in Rome and ASI engineer. My full profile and details of my projects are available at: www.teolab.it. If you would like to contact me, you can write to: info@siamoandatisullaluna.com

Davide Andreani
Contributor and science communicator of the website

My name is Davide Andreani. I was born in Portomaggiore, in the province of Ferrara, in November 1977. A chemical technician by profession, I work as a plant operator at the petrochemical complex in my city. Since childhood I have nurtured a deep passion for astronomy, spaceflight and, in general, for everything that flies. In my spare time I have devoted a great deal of energy to the Gruppo Astrofili Columbia of Ferrara, where over several terms I have held the positions of board member, secretary, vice president and president. Currently, together with my friend Matteo Negri, I serve as director of the Occhiobello Municipal Planetarium (run by the same association): here, besides organizing the events and the cultural program of the facility, I am personally involved in science outreach as a speaker. Sharing with Matteo a passion for the sky in every sense, since 2016 I too have been an airplane pilot, having earned my license at a professional flight school at the same time. When my schedule allows, I enjoy telescope observation and astrophotography, with a particular specialization in studying the Sun in H-alpha and Calcium-K. Over the years I have become a true "solar eclipse chaser" (9 total and annular eclipses so far), following them to almost every latitude on the planet, from the icy Svalbard Islands to Australia. If you would like to contact me, you can write to: davide.andreani@siamoandatisullaluna.com