Alternate Name
Born La Marre, (Jura), France, 16 August 1694
DiedBayeux, (Calvados), France, 12 April 1774
Réginald Outhier was an observational astronomer who also undertook geodetic work in Lapland and France. He studied in Poligny, Dole, and Besançon, the new capital of Franche-Comté. Outhier became a priest of the diocese of Besançon, acting as vicar at Montain near Lons-le-Saunier. It is there that he first became interested in astronomy.
In 1726 Outhier invented a moving globe that showed the apparent movement of the Sun and the Moon and the movement of the nodes of Moon’s orbit. This globe, 5 in. of diameter, was executed by J. B. Catin; it is represented in the Machines de l’Académie and was praised by A. Thiout in his treatise on watches and clocks (1741). As a consequence of his work, Outhier was named on 1 December 1731 a correspondent of Jacques Cassini (then in 1756 of César Cassini de Thury ) at the Academy of Sciences in Paris, where he was invited to...
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Dumont, S. (2014). Outhier, Réginald. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_1043
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