Abstract
THE death of Prof. P. Tacchini on March 24, at the age of sixty-seven years, has caused much regret among men of science interested in celestial and terrestrial physics. Italy has thus lost a representative man of science who especially devoted himself to the cause of astronomy with zeal and patience. For many years, as director of the Observatory of the Collegio Romano, he proved himself an indefatigable observer of planets and comets; but recently this position has been filled by Prof. Millosewich, and Prof. Tacchini had been known as the director of the Central Office of Meteorology and Geodynamics. But the especial work with which his name will ever be connected has been upon lines that have long commended themselves to Italian observers. Secchi made his reputation in the domain of spectroscopy and solar observation, and the example he set has been followed with no less eagerness and success by the distinguished astronomer whose death we have now to regret. All that related to sun-spots, faculae, or protuberances had a fascination for Tacchini, and for years past our columns have borne witness to his continuous devotion to this subject. He was particularly interested in the heliographical distribution of solar phenomena, and every three months, in the pages of the Mem. degli Spettroscopisti Italiani or the Comptes rendus, he recorded the variations and gave comparative tables showing the growth or decline of solar activity as testified by these outbursts. Researches carried on so long and so industriously cannot but prove of eminent service, and we may well hope that the work he inaugurated will be carried on with equal zeal by his successors. Prof. Tacchini's wrork in this direction well deserved the Janssen prize which was awarded him by the Paris Academy of Sciences in 1892.
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Prof. Pietro Tacchini . Nature 71, 564 (1905). https://doi.org/10.1038/071564a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/071564a0