Antonio Abetti

Antonio Abetti
Born	(1846-06-19)19 June 1846 San Pietro di Gorizia, Austrian Empire
Died	20 February 1928(1928-02-20) (aged 81) Arcetri, Kingdom of Italy
Nationality	Italian
Alma mater	University of Padua
Scientific career
Fields	Astronomy
Institutions	Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri

Antonio Abetti (19 June 1846 – 20 February 1928) was an Italian astronomer.

Born in San Pietro di Gorizia (Šempeter-Vrtojba), he earned a degree in mathematics and engineering at the University of Padua. He was married to Giovanna Colbachini in 1879 and they had two sons.[1] He died in Arcetri.

Work

Abetti mainly worked in positional astronomy and made many observations of minor planets, comets, and star occultations. He computed the orbit of 170 Maria, a Main belt asteroid.

In 1874 he was part of an Italian expedition to Muddapur, in India, led by Pietro Tacchini to observe a transit of Venus with a spectroscope.[2] Later he became director of the Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri and a professor at the University of Florence. He refurbished the observatory at Arcetri by installing a new telescope.

Honors

• Member of the Accademia dei Lincei.
• Member of the Royal Astronomical Society.
• The crater Abetti on the Moon is named after both Antonio and his son Giorgio Abetti.
• The minor planet 2646 Abetti is also named after Antonio and his son.[2]

References

1. "Antonio Abetti". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 89 (4): 325–327. February 1929. Bibcode:1929MNRAS..89R.325.. doi:10.1093/mnras/89.4.325a.
2. "Abetti, Antonio", Christof A. Plicht, p. 6, in The Biographical Dictionary of Astronomers, eds. Thomas Hockey et al., Springer: New York, 2007, ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0, doi:10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7.

External links

• Biography of Abetti Archived 2008-09-12 at the Wayback Machine