Pietro Tacchini (March 21, 1838 – March 24, 1905) was an Italian

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...

. He was born and raised in

Modena, Italy Modena (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language#Dialects, Modenese, Mòdna ; ett, Mutna; la, Mutina) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern I ...

. He studied engineering at the

University of Padova The University of Padua ( it, Università degli Studi di Padova, UNIPD) is an Italian university located in the city of Padua, region of Veneto, northern Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from B ...

. At the age of 21, he was appointed the director of a small observatory in Modena. By 1863 he became the ''Primo Astronomo Aggiunto'', or director of the observatory, at

Palermo, Italy Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

. He remained there until 1879, and focused most of his attention on observations of the Sun. In 1865 he founded the specialist physical astronomy journal, ''Memorie della Società degli Spettroscopisti'', and remained the editor until 1905. (This publication later became the ''Memorie della Società Astronomica Italiana'' in 1920.) Tacchini established an observation network with other Italian astronomers to spectroscopically examine the sun at about the same time daily. He likewise organized an observatory in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

to watch the sun when conditions were unfavorable in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. In 1874 he led an expedition to Muddapur,

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

to observe the

transit of Venus frameless, upright=0.5 A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and a superior planet, becoming visible against (and hence obscuring a small portion of) the solar disk. During a trans ...

across the sun. In 1879 he was summoned to

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

where he succeeded

Angelo Secchi Angelo Secchi (; 28 June 1818 – 26 February 1878) was an Italian Catholic priest, astronomer from the Italian region of Emilia. He was director of the observatory at the Pontifical Gregorian University (then called the Roman College) for 28 y ...

at the ''Osservatorio del Collegio Romano''. In 1881 he became head of the ''Ufficio Centrale di Meteorologia''. Due to his influence, the Bellini Observatory was completed on

Mount Etna Mount Etna, or simply Etna ( it, Etna or ; scn, Muncibbeḍḍu or ; la, Aetna; grc, Αἴτνα and ), is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, Italy, in the Metropolitan City of Catania, between the cities of Messina a ...

where Pietro believed that the high altitude would improve the spectroscopic observations of the sun, and potentially allow direct observations of the

solar corona A corona ( coronas or coronae) is the outermost layer of a star's atmosphere. It consists of plasma. The Sun's corona lies above the chromosphere and extends millions of kilometres into outer space. It is most easily seen during a total solar e ...

without an eclipse. He also recommended the construction of the Catania Observatory in 1885. In 1888 he was awarded the

Rumford Medal The Rumford Medal is an award bestowed by Britain's Royal Society every alternating year for "an outstandingly important recent discovery in the field of thermal or optical properties of matter made by a scientist working in Europe". First awar ...

and in 1892 the Janssen Medal for his work on solar spectroscopy. The crater Tacchini on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

is named for him, as well as the asteroid 8006 Tacchini.

References

External links

History of the Palermo Observatory

Portrait of Pietro Tacchini from the Lick Observatory Records Digital Archive, UC Santa Cruz Library's Digital Collections
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tacchini, Pietro 1838 births 1905 deaths 19th-century Italian astronomers Italian meteorologists Foreign Members of the Royal Society

Further reading

References

External links