I’m looking for charts designed in Italy by Silvio Mottino (Turin) and Giovanni Battista Lacchini (Faenza).
This occurred around 1952 and involved the stars Eta Aql, U Aql, V Cnc, 1 Cas, o Cet (Mira), S Cet, R CrB, W Her, R Hya, IR Oph, U Ori, S, T, Z, RS, RY UMa, RY Dra, and Z UMa.
Information about amateur astronomer Silvio Mottino is welcome.
Thank you for your help.
Riccardo
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I have a few of the old blue-print charts but I’ll have to find the charts, in a box somewhere, and check. However, I’m a pretty sure they were all Harvard-based charts and sequences not from an Italian source.
Jim (DEY)
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Greetings,
For the broader community’s awareness: when the AAVSO sold its headquarters building in 2022, the majority of our historical records, including our chart collection, were donated to the Harvard Archives as part of the AAVSO Collection. Unfortunately, these materials have not yet been fully cataloged, which makes them difficult to access at present.
As a result, AAVSO headquarters is unable to assist with inquiries that depend on those records.
Kind regards,
Brian
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When Headquarters was sold, I moved the library and some related materials to a facility I call the Astronomical Lyceum in Magdalena, New Mexico. One of the things preserved here, as I recall, is a variable star atlas by Lacchini. I’ll try to find it and describe it more accurately.
John W. Briggs
I regret that financial reasons have forced the Association to sell its historic headquarters and give up its paper archives and library. It is truly fortunate that the Harvard Archives accepted the donation of the archives and that the library is now maintained by the Astronomical Lyceum! I hope that the Harvard Archives will soon complete the cataloging of the archival materials and that they will be shared online.
My interest in Lacchini (an Italian Vice President of the AAVSO!) and Mottino (an amateur astronomer known only locally) is recent. The former is well remembered on your site. The first edition (1948) of his “Atlante celeste” is reproduced at Nuova pagina 1. The fourth edition (1969) has been reprinted several times, most recently by the Gruppo Astrofili “G.B. Lacchini” of Faenza (2007). His “Atlante celeste spettroscopico” is much rarer.
Lacchini is listed in the “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani” (treccani.it).
A more extensive biography is in “Giornale di Astronomia”, 2017, 3, 22-29: it is signed by the physician Vittoria Lacchini - DOI: 10.19272/201708803005 (original photos with Olcott and Pickering). Giovanni Battista’s granddaughter had completed the reorganization of her grandfather’s archive and library in 2017. Unfortunately, in 2023, Faenza was hit by a devastating flood and much of the paper heritage was lost. Hence my request for charts for the observation of single variable stars signed by Lacchini & Mottino: these charts were certainly more widespread in Italy than in the USA.
I conclude with your same wish (The Italian Connection | aavso): “Possa la nostra amicizia rimanere forte per altri 100 anni”!