The Astronomical Observatory of Trieste

In 1898 the Observatory became an autonomous institution under the name of the "Imperial Royal Astronomical and Meteorological Observatory of the Imperial Royal Ministry of Culture and Education", and its premises were moved to a building known as the Basevi Castle, which still today houses the headquarters of the Observatory. In the same year a Seismic section was added. In 1906 the Institute passed under the rule of the Imperial Royal Maritime Government of Trieste, with the official name of "Imperial Royal Maritime Observatory of Trieste". In 1919, after the fall of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, Trieste was annexed to Italy, and this, together with the separation of the Astronomical Observatory from the Seismic and Meteorological Sections, marks the end of the first phase of the history.

The official foundation of the Astronomical Observatory of Trieste as a scientific institution devoted exclusively to Astronomy, took place in 1919 when Luigi Carnera was nominated as permanent director. In 1923 it became one of the Royal Astronomical Observatories of Italy, and in 1925 it was officially inaugurated. Regular work was carried on there until the 1930s, when the expansion of the city had led to the Basevi Castle being surrounded by urban development. In 1932 Giuseppe Favaro succeeded Luigi Carnera as director and expressed his worries about the location to the Ministry of Public Education.

From 1940, the Second World War halted the Institute's development. In 1942 Giovanni Battista Lacchini was appointed director after his predecessor had resigned. In 1944 the Observatory was bombed and machinegunned, and although the building was put almost completely out of use, Lacchini with great courage continued to carry out his duties alone. In these bad conditions he continued to work on the time service and used portable instruments to carry out optical observations of nova stars and eclipses. 1946 marked the end of the second phase of the tormented life of the Observatory, which had begun with the inauguration in 1925.

The full scientific work, which had been suspended from 1942 to 1946 during the wartime, was started again in 1947 when Ettore Leonida Martin was appointed as director. In the same year the Observatory was given the legal status of autonomous Advanced Institute of the Ministry of Public Education of the newborn Italian Republic. The year 1947 also marks the beginning of co-operative working between the Observatory and the University of Trieste. This was instituted by Martin himself, who was a teacher of astronomy under annual contract to the University from 1946 until the legislative amendment of 1956, which assigned him the chair of astronomy at the University together with the mandatory office of director of the Observatory. He remained in office until 1964.

Martin started the post-war renewal both of the premises and of the scientific activity of the Observatory. The main actions were the acquisition of the buildings and land of the Basevi Castle estate in 1947, and the simultaneous successful attempt to remove the unofficial wartime occupants of the building, which even hosted a ballroom during the period 1946-47.

Particular note should be made of the Observatory library, which was originally started in 1753. The contents of the library, which in 1946 comprised over 16,000 books and documents, was split up and reunited many times, in response to the history and evolution of the legal status of the Institute and the wartime events. Today the library contains over 8,000 volumes plus issues of about 100 international scientific journals, together with scientific reports from other observatories from all over the world. The first inventory, reorganization and classification of the library stock, started in 1946 by Martin and subsequently carried out in various phases by Margherita Hack, is currently being completed with the aid of computer programs following Italian standards for Library management.

The process of transformation of the Observatory into a modern international research institute started in 1964 when Margherita Hack took over the directorship, which she continued to hold until January 1987. To Professor Hack must go the credit of having developed the Observatory's programmes, staff and structures to reach the high level of scientific production necessary for competitive participation in the international astronomical research community.

From 1966 to 1971 Margherita Hack promoted an increase in the numbers of both technical and research staff. In order to solve the pressing problems of overcrowding of the main premises of the Observatory, she had a branch station built at Basovizza, 400m above sea level on the Carso Plateau, 12 km from the main site at the Basevi Castle in the city. 1967 saw the installation at Basovizza of a 0.3m diameter Cassegrain reflecting telescope and a Newtonian 0.5m diameter reflecting telescope, which could not be used at the main site in the city. In 1971 a 1.05m diameter Cassegrain reflecting telescope was built and installed at Basovizza. Subsequently the three telescopes were equipped with photo-electric photometers, and the two larger ones were also equipped with medium dispersion grid spectrographs. During the 1960s, a solar radio-astronomy programme was also started and developed, which continues up to the present day. The first VHF radio-telescope with dihedral fixed antenna was built and installed at Basovizza during the years 1966 and 1967, and after this there followed the installation of a VHF-UHF 10m diameter radio-telescope with equatorial paraboloid (in 1969), and a 73m EW simple base interferometer at 408 MHz (in 1970). The focal plane instruments for the telescopes were built in the Laboratories of Optics, Electronics and Mechanics constructed for this purpose at the branch station. Particularly important projects included the construction in 1976 of a computer controlled double-beam rapid photoelectric photometer (as part of a national project in the field of photoelectric photometry co-ordinated by the Observatory) and the construction of a digital system for data acquisition and processing for the solar radio-telescope at the branch station.