- Guillaume Bigourdan
Camille Guillaume Bigourdan (
April 6 ,1851 –February 28 ,1932 ) was a Frenchastronomer .Bigourdan was born at
Sistels . In 1877 he was appointed byFélix Tisserand as assistant astronomer at theToulouse Observatory , and in 1879 followed Tisserand to theParis Observatory when the latter became director there.He spent many years verifying the positions of 6380
nebula s. He hoped to set a basis for future studies of theproper motion of nebulas; this turned out to be more or less in vain, since distant nebulas will not show any proper motion. However, he did discover approximately 500 new objects.In 1902 he participated in an effort to redetermine with greater precision the longitude difference between
London andParis . He became a member of theBureau des Longitudes in 1903, and a member of theFrench Academy of Sciences in 1904.He described a method for adjusting
equatorial mount telescopes, which was known as "Bigourdan's method ".Bigourdan won the
Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1919. He was director of theBureau International de l'Heure from 1919 to 1928.He married a daughter of
Amédée Mouchez .Further reading
*DSB
first=Jacques R.
last=Levy
title=Bigourdan, Camille Guillaume
volume=2
pages=126-127External links
* [http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/MNRAS/0079//0000306.000.html Awarding of RAS gold medal]
;Obituaries
* [http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/JRASC/0026//0000276.000.html JRASC 26 (1932) 276] (one line)
* [http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/MNRAS/0093//0000233.000.html MNRAS 93 (1933) 233]
* [http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/Obs../0055//0000116.000.html Obs 55 (1932) 116]
* [http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/PASP./0044//0000133.000.html PASP 44 (1932) 133]
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