Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille

Abbe Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille (1713-1762) was a French astronomer, geodesist and Catholic priest whose observations reshaped the map of the southern sky. From 1750 to 1754 Lacaille conducted an extraordinarily productive observing campaign from the Cape of Good Hope in present-day South Africa, using a small refracting telescope to catalogue nearly ten thousand southern stars. During this expedition he introduced fourteen of the eighty-eight constellations recognized by astronomers today, most of them named after scientific and artistic instruments such as the telescope, microscope and sculptor's chisel, reflecting his interest in the tools of the Enlightenment. Lacaille also measured a geodetic arc at the Cape to help determine the shape of the Earth. He later held academic and clerical positions in Paris, combining his religious vocation with an active career as one of the eighteenth century's most industrious observational astronomers.