On a mountaintop in southeastern Arizona, at nearly eleven thousand feet above sea level, a group of Jesuit priests spend their nights pointing a telescope at the edge of the observable universe --- on behalf of the Pope. The Vatican Observatory is one of the oldest astronomical institutions in the world, born not from grand spiritual ambition but from the gloriously practical need to fix a calendar. From Father Angelo Secchi classifying the stars in nineteenth century Rome, to four nuns cataloguing half a million stars from photographic plates, to the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope scanning distant galaxies from the Arizona desert today, this is the story of an institution that has never accepted the false choice between faith and science --- and has the moon craters to prove it.

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