Professor Pacini dies, he was the “daddy of pulsars”

Professor Franco Pacini died this morning in Florence, Italy. Pacini was one of the greatest Italian astrophysicists, pioneer of the research on neutron stars, called “pulsars”.

Pacini, 72, was born in Florence on May 10, 1939. He has long been the director of the Observatory of Arcetri in Florence, Italy, and the president of the International Astronomical Union.

During his professional activity he has given a fundamental contribution to the realization of the “planet-hunter” outside the Solar system, a sophisticated “tool” called LBT, Large Binocular Telescope, housed at MGIO in Arizona (USA).

MGIO is a division of Steward Observatory , the research arm for the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona . Scientific researchers from around the world make use of the MGIO facilities. MGIO serves this community, operating and maintaining facilities at the remote observing site located in the Pinaleño Mountains in southeast Arizona.  This area is a part of the Coronado National Forest — administered by the Safford Ranger District, U.S. Forest Service.  Our office, the Base Camp, is located at the eastern base of Mt. Graham, six miles south of Safford, Arizona.

The next generation of adaptive optics has arrived at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Arizona, providing astronomers with a new level of image sharpness never before seen. Developed in a collaboration between Italy’s Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) and the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory.

Until relatively recently, ground-based telescopes had to live with wavefront distortion caused by the Earth’s atmosphere that significantly blurred the images of distant objects (this is why stars appear to twinkle to the human eye). While there have been advancements in adaptive optics technology to correct atmospheric blurring, the LBT’s innovative system truly takes this concept to a whole new level.