Fournier, Georges

BornRouvray, Côte-d’Or, France, 21 November 1881

DiedParis, France, 1 December 1954

Georges Fournier was one of the most gifted planetary observers of the twentieth century. At 16 he moved to Paris to continue his education and joined the Société Astronomique de France, which Camille Flammarion had founded in 1887. It was located in the Hôtel des Sociétés Savantes in the heart of the Latin Quarter of Paris.

While studying for a career as a teacher and later as a professor of sciences and mathematics, Fournier devoted as much of his time as he could spare from his professional obligations to astronomy, and especially to the observation of the terrestrial planets. At first he observed, often in collaboration with his brother, Valentin (1884–1978), with the 108-mm refractor erected in the cupola on top of the Hôtel des Sociétés Savantes but he was never employed as an observer at Flammarion’s private observatory at Juvisy-sur-Orge, as Eugène Antoniadi and F. Quessinet had been. His...