Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille
French astronomer · France · Scientists · Lived 1713 to 1762 · aged 49
Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille is read about 51 times a day, in 63 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 15 October 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 390 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?He named 14 constellations - more than any other single astronomer - and catalogued over 10,000 stars from the southern tip of Africa with a handheld refractor.
Also in Deutsch
Photos 8
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A memorial to the Abbe de la Caille, at Aurora in the Western Cape of South Africa (cropped)
A memorial to the Abbe de la Caille, at Aurora in the Western Cape of South Africa.jpg?width=1200)
Apus and Octans in Lacaille's planisphere (1756)
Coelum Australe Stelliferum - Índice
Coelum Australe Stelliferum
Constellation Chamaelon and Musca.jpg?width=1200)
Dorado (Lacaille1863)Awards
About this person
Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille was a French astronomer and geodesist born 15 March 1713. From 1750 to 1754, he traveled to the Cape of Good Hope in present-day South Africa to study the southern sky, a hemisphere largely unmapped by European science. Using a refracting telescope, he observed over 10,000 stars and went on to name 14 of the 88 constellations recognized today. He died 21 March 1762, six days after his forty-ninth birthday.
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