Pietro Baracchi

Pietro Paolo Giovanni Ernesto Baracchi (1851–1926) was an Italian astronomer. He moved to Australia in the 1870s and worked at the Melbourne Observatory. In 1910 the Australian government asked him to find a suitable place for an observatory in the new Australian Capital Territory. Barrachi set up a small observatory on Mount Stromlo in May 1911. This was the first government building in Canberra and was the beginning of the Mount Stromlo Observatory. The observatory had a 9-inch (23 cm) telescope, donated by Ballarat gold miner, James Oddie.