Abbé Réginald Outhier also given as Regnauld or Renaud Outhier (16 August 1694 – 12 April 1774) was a French clergyman, traveller, and writer who worked on cartography and astronomy. Outhier was born at La Marre-Jouserans, near Poligny, France, and studied at Dole and

Besançon Besançon (, ; , ; archaic ; ) is the capital of the Departments of France, department of Doubs in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. The city is located in Eastern France, close to the Jura Mountains and the border with Switzerland. Capi ...

. He became a priest at Besançon, where he became interested in astronomy. He later served as a canon at

Bayeux Cathedral Bayeux Cathedral, also known as Cathedral of Our Lady of Bayeux (French language, French: ''Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Bayeux''), is a Roman Catholic church architecture, church located in the town of Bayeux in Normandy, France. A Monument histori ...

. In 1726–1727 he presented a 5-inch-diameter celestial globe to the

Académie Royale des Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. It was at the forefront of scientific d ...

, which demonstrated the movements of the sun and stars with a clockwork mechanism. This impressed Cassini II who made him a correspondent to the Royal Academy in 1731. In 1733 he became involved in producing a map of France along with Bishop of Bayeux,

Paul d'Albert de Luynes Paul d'Albert (; 5 January 1703 – 21 January 1788) was a French prelate. He was elected the seventh occupant of Académie française seat 29 in 1743. Early life Paul d'Albert was born on 5 January 1703 in the city of Versailles, where his fam ...

and took part in the triangulation surveys from Caen to St. Malo. He was included in the Academy's expedition in 1736–1737 to Lapland to examine the shape of the earth. The expedition was led by Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, with the scientists included being

Alexis Claude Clairaut Alexis Claude Clairaut (; ; 13 May 1713 – 17 May 1765) was a French mathematician, astronomer, and geophysicist. He was a prominent Newtonian whose work helped to establish the validity of the principles and results that Sir Isaac Newton had o ...

, Charles Le Monnier and Charles Etienne Louis Camus. The Swedish scientist

Anders Celsius Anders Celsius (; 27 November 170125 April 1744) was a Swedes, Swedish astronomer, physicist and mathematician. He was professor of astronomy at Uppsala University from 1730 to 1744, but traveled from 1732 to 1735 visiting notable observatories ...

was also involved and Outhier was included as physician, astronomer and maintainer of the journal of the expedition. He drew maps of the travels and published the notes on the voyage in 1744. In 1752 he drew an accurate map of the night sky covering the

Pleiades The Pleiades (), also known as Seven Sisters and Messier 45 (M45), is an Asterism (astronomy), asterism of an open cluster, open star cluster containing young Stellar classification#Class B, B-type stars in the northwest of the constellation Tau ...

. File:Outhier globe 1.jpg, Outhier's celestial globe Outhier_globe_2.jpg

References

External links

* Journal d’un voyage au nord, en 1736 et 1737 (1744) {{DEFAULTSORT:Outhier, Réginald 1694 births 1774 deaths French astronomers