The Vatican Observatory Podcast

Br. Guy Consolmagno chats with Cliff Stoll - astronomer, teacher and author of the book The Cuckoo’s Egg, which tells the story of how he tracked down a group of German hackers working for the Soviet KGB in 1986. Cliff is also a long-time buddy of Br. Guy.

Co-Hosts:
Br. Guy Consolmagno SJ: Director of Vatican Observatory and President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation.
Bob Trembley: Factotum for the Vatican Observatory Foundation.

Guest:
Cliff Stoll is an astronomer, author, and teacher known for tracking down a group of German hackers working for the Soviet KGB in 1986.

As a systems administrator at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, while working on the development of the Keck Telescope, Stoll pursued a 75-cent accounting hiccup, ultimately uncovering a major security breach. His book, The Cuckoo’s Egg, details this investigation and became a bestseller.

The 1990 PBS NOVA video: The KGB, The Computer and Me – The Cuckoo’s Egg Story is available on a couple channels on YouTube – it’s hilarious!

Stoll’s work significantly contributed to early cybersecurity awareness.

Stoll is also known for creating and selling glass Klein bottles

Vatican Observatory website: https://www.vaticanobservatory.org/

Intro music: Irreducible by ComaStudio
Finale music:  Cinematic Documentary by Lexin_Music

Br. Guy Consolmagno chats with Rev. Richard A. D'Souza - the incoming Director of the Vatican Observatory! He takes the reins from Br. Guy on September 19, 2025.

Co-Hosts:
Br. Guy Consolmagno SJ: Director of Vatican Observatory and President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation.
Bob Trembley: Factotum for the Vatican Observatory Foundation.

Guest:
Rev. Richard A. D'Souza, Sj was born in 1978 in Pune, India and hails from Goa, India. His initial school years were spent in Kuwait. From 1990, he moved back to his home state of Goa, India and joined a Jesuit school.

After finishing his schooling, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1996, and finished his two years novitiate in Belgaum, India. This was followed by a year of study of the humanities (Juniorate) in Pune. In 2002, he completed his graduation in Physics at St.Xaviers' college in Mumbai and proceeded for his Masters in Physics to the University of Heidelberg, where he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy for his thesis work.

He returned to Pune in 2005 to complete a Bachelors degree in Philosophy. In 2007, he founded and ran the St. Paul's Community College in Belgaum to help school dropouts find gainful employment. After finishing his Bachelors in Theology in 2011 in Pune, he retuned to Goa and ran a popular theology programme for the laity called "Deepen Your Faith".

In 2012, he started his doctoral studies in Astronomy at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, in Garching, Munich, graduating in 2016. In 2016, he formally joined the staff of the Vatican Observatory as well started at the same time a postdoc at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. In 2019, he moved to the headquarters of the Vatican Observatory in Castel Gandolfo. Since 2022, he has been serving as the Superior of the Jesuit community attached to the Vatican Observatory.

Vatican Observatory website: https://www.vaticanobservatory.org/
Follow Rev. D'Souza on Bluesky.

Intro music: Irreducible by ComaStudio
Finale music:  Cinematic Documentary by Lexin_Music

Br. Guy Consolmagno chats with Dr. Deana L. Weibel - a cultural anthropologist whose work focuses primarily on religion, especially the topics of pilgrimage, sacred space, the mutual influence of scientific and religious ideas on each other, and religion and space exploration. 

She spoke to us on those topics… and science fiction movies, as well!

Co-Hosts:
Br. Guy Consolmagno SJ: Director of Vatican Observatory and President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation.
Bob Trembley: Factotum for the Vatican Observatory Foundation.

Guest:
Dr. Deana L. Weibel:  A Space Anthropologist and Anthropologist of Religion.

She spent a month in 2019 at the Vatican Observatory, studying "the Pope's Astronomers;" from mid-March to mid-April 2019, where she conducted ethnographic research including interviews, attended daily activities and events, and got to know the astronomers and staff.

Vatican Observatory website: https://www.vaticanobservatory.org/
Follow Deana on: Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In and Bluesky.

Intro music: Irreducible by ComaStudio
Finale music:  Cinematic Documentary by Lexin_Music

Br. Guy Consolmagno chats with Dr. Michelle Francl about her book  Steeped: The Chemistry of Tea, which explores the chemistry behind different styles of tea. The book caused quite a stir with various international news agencies - and a virtual firestorm in Britain.

Dr. Francl was also a guest for the Vatican Observatory podcast in Dec. of 2021 with an episode named: A Taste for Heavy Water.

Hosts:
Br. Guy Consolmagno SJ: Director of Vatican Observatory and President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation.
Bob Trembley: Factotum for the Vatican Observatory Foundation.

Guest:
Dr. Michelle Francl: The Frank B. Mallory Professor of Chemistry at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, and an Adjunct Scholar for the Vatican Observatory.

Vatican Observatory website: https://www.vaticanobservatory.org/
Michelle's Blog: https://quantumtheology.blogspot.com/

Intro music: Irreducible by ComaStudio
Finale music:  Cinematic Documentary by Lexin_Music

Br. Guy Consolmagno chats with Br. Bob Macke about being a team member of two asteroid missions:  the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission, and the Lucy mission to the Trojan asteroids.

Hosts:
Br. Guy Consolmagno SJ: Director of Vatican Observatory and President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation.
Bob Trembley: Factotum for the Vatican Observatory Foundation.

Guest:
Br. Bob Macke, SJ: Curator of meteorites at the Vatican Observatory

Vatican Observatory website: https://www.vaticanobservatory.org/
Macke Makerspace: https://www.youtube.com/@MackeMakerSpace
GaliLEGO Stop-Motion video: [Link]

Intro music: Irreducible by ComaStudio
Finale music:  Cinematic Documentary by Lexin_Music

Br. Guy Consolmagno chats with Charles F. Bolden Jr. during the 30th anniversary celebration of 'first light' into the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope.

Hosts:
Br. Guy Consolmagno SJ: Director of Vatican Observatory and President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation.
Bob Trembley: Factotum for the Vatican Observatory Foundation.

Guest:
Charles F. Bolden Jr.: Marine Corps Major General (retired), space shuttle astronaut and former NASA Administrator,

Vatican Observatory website: https://www.vaticanobservatory.org/

Intro music: Irreducible by ComaStudio
Finale music:  Cinematic Documentary by Lexin_Music

Matthew Pinson SJ is a young Jesuit scientist from Australia. He was one of the students at the 2023 Vatican Observatory Summer School held in Rome during June. Hear what it was like to be a student at the school, and how Matthew’s journey took him from a farm in Australia to a doctorate at MIT, then the Jesuits, and finally to the Vatican!

Hosts:
Br. Guy Consolmagno SJ: Director of Vatican Observatory and President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation.
Bob Trembley: Factotum for the Vatican Observatory Foundation.

Guests:
Matthew Pinson SJ

Vatican Observatory website: https://www.vaticanobservatory.org/

Intro music: Irreducible by ComaStudio
Finale music:  Cinematic Documentary by Lexin_Music

This podcast was taken from the Full Moon Meetup on Friday, January 6, 2023. To begin the year, we had a roundtable discussion with several members of the Vatican Observatory staff. We covered everything from Befana, the Italian Epiphany witch, to the 30th anniversary of the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT),  and the year ahead.

Hosts:
Br. Guy Consolmagno SJ: Director of Vatican Observatory and President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation.
Bob Trembley: Factotum for the Vatican Observatory Foundation.

Guests:
Fr. Paul Gabor: Vice Director of the Vatican Observatory and Vice Director for the Vatican Observatory Research Group (Tucson)
Dr. Larry Lebofsky: Senior Education and Communication Specialist - Planetary Science Institute (retired); Asteroid hunter.
Chris Kennedy: Executive Director of Development for the Vatican Observatory Foundation
Katie Steinke: Development Committee Chair for the Vatican Observatory Foundation

Vatican Observatory website: https://www.vaticanobservatory.org/

Intro music: Irreducible by ComaStudio 

What spurs an artist to start sketching celestial objects as they look in her small telescope? What thrills her the most? Is it seeing the fine details of nebulae through large telescopes? Sketching the Moon's slowly changing terminator and Sun's prominences? Working with children - helping them understand the night sky, and awakening their curiosity in science? 

Deirdre Kelleghan is an astronomical artist, living in western Ireland, under incredibly dark skies. With an eye to the telescope, she sketches the beauty of the cosmos, and through her outreach, she teaches others how to do the same.

Deirdre is a former President of the Irish Astronomical Society, and is the current Outreach / Vice Chair of the Irish Federation of Astronomical Societies; she has been interviewed on TV, radio and podcasts about her outreach activities. She is also a Sacred Space Astronomy author, and frequently posts her artwork on the Vatican Observatory website.

 Guests:
- Deirdre Kelleghan:  Astronomer, astronomical artist, educator and Sacred Space Astronomy author.
- Br. Guy Consolmagno SJ: Director of Vatican Observatory and President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation.

Deirdre 's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@skysketcher1
Deirdre's website: http://www.deirdrekelleghan.net/
Vatican Observatory website: https://www.vaticanobservatory.org/

Intro music: Irreducible by ComaStudio 

So, how many people do you know who have had a children’s book written about them? Dr. Heidi Hammel gained international fame in 1994 by leading the Hubble Space Telescope Team that imaged Jupiter during the impacts of Comet Shoemaker Levy 9, but in fact her main research has focused on the “ice giant” planets, Uranus and Neptune. Her ground-based telescope observations were crucial to interpreting the Voyager spacecraft flyby images, and she now helps direct planetary observations with the Webb Space Telescope. 

Guests:
Dr. Heidi Hammel - Vice President for Science for the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), and an Interdisciplinary Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope.
- Br. Guy Consolmagno SJ - Director of Vatican Observatory and President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation.

Vatican Observatory website: https://www.vaticanobservatory.org/

Intro music: Irreducible by ComaStudio