Antonio Abetti

Italian astronomer

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. In 1874 he was part of an expedition 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

^ "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.
^ ^a ^b "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.