1.4

Jérôme de Lalande and international cooperation

Jean-Claude Pecker, Paris

Abstract

At the age of twenty, Lalande, from Berlin, together with La Caille, from the Cape of Good Hope, detemined the Moons parallax (1751-1752). It was indeed an international operation which involved some planning in Europe an countries and some local support in Prussia, in England, at the Cape ... Later, Lalande was instrumental in organizing and analysing the observations of the transit of Venus, in June 1761 and June 1769, all over the World, in order to determine the parallax of the Sun. Still later, he was a key figure in the organization, around F.-X. von Zach, of the first International Astronomical meeting in Gotha (1798).

Bibliographical details:

Jean-Claude Pecker: Jérôme de Lalande and international cooperation. In: Peter Brosche, Wolfgang R. Dick, Oliver Schwarz, Roland Wielen (Eds.): The Message of the Angles - Astrometry from 1798 to 1998. Proceedings of the International Spring Meeting of the Astronomische Gesellschaft, Gotha, May 11-15, 1998. (Acta Historica Astronomiae ; 3). Thun ; Frankfurt am Main : Deutsch, 1998, p. 52-62.