Antonio Abetti

Antonio Abetti ( born June 19, 1846 in San Pietro di Gorizia ( Gorizia ) (then Italian, Slovenian today ), † February 20, 1928 in Arcetri (Florence) ) was an Italian astronomer.

Abettis birthplace belonged until 1814 to the Napoleonic Empire on, was 1814-1919 under Austrian administration and then fell to Italy.

Abetti was actually an engineer, but turned in 1868 after taking a degree in Mathematics and Engineering was awarded to the University of Padua, of astronomy. He worked until 1893 at the Observatory of Padua, then was appointed director of the Observatory of Arcetri and professor at the University of Florence appointed.

The Observatory of Arctri, which was built in 1872 by Giovanni Battista Donati, was dissolved after the death part. One of the first tasks Abettis was therefore the establishment of a telescope, which he had once built in the workshops of Padua. The lens of this telescope consisted of a two-element achromatic system of 28 cm aperture and 5.33 m focal length, which had been prepared in 1839 by Giovanni Battista Amici.

Abetti mainly worked on the determination of the positions of celestial bodies. During his time in Padua and Arcetri he did numerous observations of minor planets ( asteroids ), comets, and occultations. During an expedition to Muddapur, (now Madhupur in Jharkhand, Bengal ), he observed the transit of Venus of 1874 by a spectroscope.

Abetti was a member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Rome), the Royal Astronomical Society (London) and several Italian academies.

His son Giorgio Abetti (1882-1982) was also an astronomer and a major solar physicist.

In honor of father and son Abetti two lunar craters and the asteroid ( 2646 ) Abetti were named.