Why Messier 13     

The G.A.T. (Gruppo Astronomico Tradatese) is the astronomy group of Tradate, that was born in 1973, after the Apollo 17 last mission, that  happend on 17^th December 1972.

  The following year, the Arecibo radio telescope, the biggest in the world with a 300 metres diametre, sent for the first time in the history a radio message towards the stars to inform about the existence of  an intelligent human specie, that live in a lonely planet, in a solar system in our galaxy, the “Milky Way”. The message was sent to Hercules Constellation towards M13, a globular cluster, where there are thousand of stars in a limited space, in this area there is the probability that exists an intelligent species alive that is able to translate the message. The first G.A.T. decision was to use this important event like logo, that indicated the G.A.T. function : didactics and spread to everybody

The Board of Directors of FOAM13 has decided to adopt the name "Messier 13" becoming

Fondazione Osservatorio Astronomico 

di Tradate 

"Messier 13"

M13 image taken with the main telescope T65.

The  G.A.T. travelled all over the world, in 1999 the group visited the Arecibo Radio Telescope.