Jean Focas

Jean-Henri Focas was a Greek-French astronomer, painter, designer, illustrator, astrophysicists, photographer, and celestial cartographer who spoke five languages. He performed visual studies of planetary surfaces from the National Observatory of Athens, Pic du Midi, and Meudon Great Refractor. Jean is responsible for creating the most highly visual map of Mars ever created by a visual observer of the planet. He developed special photographic equipment to photograph celestial phenomena. In 1961, he published Étude Photométrique et Polarimétrique des Phénomènes Saisonniers de la Planéte Mar which became a classic on the subject of polarimetric investigation of Mars. A crater on the Moon and a crater on Mars were named after him because of his contribution to the field.