On the weekend near San Lorenzo, the Gorga Observatory organizes an evening for the observation of the starry sky and falling stars.
All the lawn in front of the observatory is filled with telescopes with which it is possible to observe the shooting stars, in addition to the equipment supplied to the observatory with which you can scrutinize the deep space and the most distant planets.
The night of San Lorenzo is typically dedicated to shooting stars, in fact the period between the end of July and mid-August corresponds to the passage of the Peseadi, a swarm of meteors that orbit the sun.
They are also called tears of Saint Lawrence and in the Christian tradition they were connected only with the night of 10 August. In the past, during the Roman period they were considered a sperm rain of the god Inuo-Priapus that would have fertilized the fields of the earth.
They are the remains of the Swift-Tuttle comet and the meteors have been produced by its breakup and look like falling stars.
The name of Perseadi, instead, derives from the fact that their position makes them look like stars in the constellation of Peseo and not meteorites that revolve around the sun.
The first to observe this phenomenon were the Chinese in 36 AD, while the link between the falling stars and the comet was identified by the Italian astronomer Virginio Schiapparelli in 1862.
During these summer days, the swarm is particularly visible from the earth and is observable even to the naked eye assuming the form of 'falling stars'
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