Guido Horn d'Arturo
Guido Horn d'Arturo (born February 13, 1879 in Trieste as Guido Horn , † April 1, 1967 in Bologna ) was an Italian astronomer .
Life
Guido Horn was born in 1879 as the third of four children of Arturo Horn and Vittoria Melli in Trieste, then Austria-Hungary . The Jewish family probably had its roots in the Netherlands . When he was two years old, his father died and he was raised by his maternal grandfather, Rabbi Raffaele Sabato Melli.
Horn first studied mathematics, physics and astronomy for four years at the University of Graz and then at the University of Vienna , where he received his doctorate in 1902 with the thesis Definitive Determination of the Orbit of Comet 1889 IV , written under Josef von Hepperger .
In 1903 he became a volunteer observer at the Astronomical and Meteorological Observatory Trieste , where he dealt with problems of timing and meteorology. In 1907 he became first assistant at the Astrophysical Observatory Catania , 1910 assistant in Turin, 1912 assistant at the University Observatory of Bologna under Michele Rajna .
In the First World War he served as a volunteer in the Italian army and made it up to the captain of the artillery. During this time he added d'Arturo to his family name after his father. After the war, he was granted Italian citizenship and his name change was officially recognized by the authorities.
In 1918 he resumed the service in Bologna, in March 1920 he became an astronomer at the Osservatorio astronomico al Collegio Romano in Rome, in January 1921, after Rajna's death, he became director of the observatory in Bologna , where he also received the chair of astronomy in 1925 and 1928 became a full professor.
In 1938 he was dismissed from service due to the fascist race laws . He survived World War II in Bologna, Faenza and Pesaro . In March 1945 he was given back the management of the Bologna observatory and the chair that Francesco Zagar had held in the meantime . He remained a professor in Bologna until his retirement in 1954, but continued to work scientifically afterwards.
Services
Horn d'Arturo had a variety of interests, ranging from positional astronomy to cosmology . Among other things, he dealt with the nature of the luminosity of comets , solar observations and variable stars . He led an expedition to observe the total solar eclipse on January 14, 1926 in Somalia and on June 19, 1936 in the Peloponnese .
In Bologna he took care of the expansion and improved instrumentation of the observatory and acquired a new Zeiss reflector with a diameter of 60 cm. In 1936 he had a new observation station built in Loiano at around 800 m slm , which offered better observation conditions than in Bologna.
Horn d'Arturo made significant achievements in the field of instrumentation. He used a conical lens instead of a prism for spectroscopy of stars and comets. For cost reasons, he constructed telescopes whose mirrors were composed of individual segments. The first telescope, built in 1935, was 1 m in diameter and 10.5 m in focal length , the second telescope from 1953 consisted of 61 mirrors and had an aperture of 1.8 m and a focal length of 10.4 m. This technique of segmented mirrors was later adapted for the Multiple Mirror Telescope and the Keck Observatory .
An important concern for him was the popularization of astronomy. In Turin he began to write articles for the Rivista di astronomia e scienze affini , in 1931 at the suggestion of Luigi Jacchia he founded the popular science magazine Coelum , of which he was editor for many years and which appeared until 1986.
Honors
- Name of the asteroid (3744) Horn-d'Arturo
- Naming of the library of the Astronomical Institute and the observatory in Bologna, Biblioteca Guido Horn d'Arturo , 1999
literature
- Fabrizio Bonoli: Horn d'Arturo, Guido. In: Mario Caravale (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 61: Guglielmo Gonzaga-Jacobini. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2003.
- Fabrizio Bònoli: Horn d'Arturo, Guido. In: Thomas Hockey et al. (Ed.): Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers , Springer, New York 2014, ISBN 978-1-4419-9916-0 , pp. 1003-1005. doi : 10.1007 / 978-1-4419-9917-7_648
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Lutz D. Schmadel: Dictionary of Minor Planet Names . 6th edition. Springer, Heidelberg 2012, ISBN 978-3-642-29717-5 , p. 297 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-642-29718-2 .
- ^ Monica Marra: New astronomy library in Bologna is named after Guido Horn D'Arturo: a forefather of modern telescopes. In: Journal of the British Astronomical Association, Volume 110 (2000), p. 88, bibcode : 2000JBAA..110 ... 88M
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Horn d'Arturo, Guido |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Horn, Guido (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian astronomer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 13, 1879 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Trieste |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 1, 1967 |
| Place of death | Bologna |