Lacaille's southern sky catalogue
Catálogo del cielo austral de Lacaille
- Date
- 1751-1752 · confidence high
- Place
- Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
- Credited to
- Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
At the Cape, with a small refractor, Lacaille measured the positions of nearly 10,000 southern stars, defined 14 new constellations (Pictor, Pyxis, Antlia, Fornax...) and computed the lunar parallax. His catalogue is the first of the southern sky.
He published the Coelum Australe Stelliferum in 1763 (posthumously). Lacaille's 14 constellations survive among the 88 official ones, although he named them after scientific instruments.
What it led to
- nomenclature of the southern constellations
- determination of the Moon's distance with simultaneous observations (Lalande, Berlin)
- a basis for the catalogues of Gould and Gill