THE FATHER OF SOUTHERN ASTRONOMY

LA CAILLE (LACAILLE), NICOLAS LOUIS DE.

Sur le Calcul des Projections en general, et en particulier sur le Calcul des Projections propres aux E'clipses de Soleil & aux Occultations des E'toiles fixe par la Lune.

(Paris, L'Imprimerie Royale, 1744). 4to. Without wrappers as extracted from "Histoire de L'Academie Royale des Sciences", L'Annee 1744, pp. 191-238 and 2 folded engraved plates.

First edition. "The Abbé La Caille was an immensssely industrious observational astronomer whose career was climaxed by a scintific expedition to Cape of Good Hope; his studies here made him "the father of of southern astronomy", and his names for fourteen southern constellations remain as his most enduring monumnt." His results in measuring the parallax of the moon, especially from Cape of Good Hope - provided an exact computation of the earth-moon distance - indicating a distance to the moon of about 60 times the earth's radius.

Order-nr.: 39144