Lacaille: Abbe and Astronomer

Abstract

Nicolas Louis Lacaille (sometimes written La Caille or LaCaille) (1713–1763) was an eighteenth century French astronomer who observed, measured, and cataloged much of the heavens, including many of the fuzzy celestial objects later cataloged by Messier. In fact, Lacaille discovered three of the “Messier Objects” (M55, M69, and M83). He spent 2 years (1751–1753) observing and cataloging over 9,000 southern stars from Cape Town, South Africa. During this time, he cataloged one of the nearest stars, Lacaille 9352 (#19 in distance at 11.77 ly), and made measurements of many double stars, including the first accurate measurements of α Centauri, the nearest star system.