My researches at the infrared doors

As a historical and biographical introduction to this Conference, I give here a brief review about my studies in infrared astronomy. I begun making regular observations in this unexplored (at that time) field moving from the wavelengths just beyond the visible, where I discovered, for example, the galaxies then named Maffei 1 and Maffei 2, located in the Zone of Avoidance. The analysis of the material thus collected, mainly aimed at studies on long period variables (LPVs), produced a series of new and hardly predicted results. Further important developments of my researches in infrared are now expected from the ongoing development of an Antarctica telescope for the mid-infrared bands. These bands were an almost unexplored range of the spectrum only a few years ago: now the researches discussed in this meeting show how many new fields of study have become active in them.