André-Louis Danjon

Infobox Scientist
name = André-Louis Danjon
birth_date = April 6, 1890
birth_place = Caen
death_date = April 21, 1967
death_place = Paris
residence =
citizenship =
nationality = French
ethnicity =
field = astronomy
work_institutions =
known_for = Danjon Scale
prizes = Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1958
religion =
footnotes =

André-Louis Danjon (April 6, 1890 – April 21, 1967) was a French astronomer born in Caen.

Danjon devised a method to measure "Earthshine" on the Moon using a telescope in which a prism split the Moon's image into two identical side-by-side images. By adjusting a diaphragm to dim one of the images until the sunlit portion had the same apparent brightness as the earthlit portion on the unadjusted image, he could quantify the diaphragm adjustment, and thus had a real measurement for the brightness of Earthshine. He recorded the measurements using his method (now known as the Danjon Scale, on which zero equates to a barely visible Moon) from 1925 until the 1950s.

Among his notable contributions to astronomy was the design of the impersonal (prismatic) astrolabe now known as the Danjon astrolabe, which led to an improvement in the accuracy of fundamental optical astrometry. An account of this instrument, and of the results of some early years of its operation, are given in Danjon's 1958 George Darwin Lecture to the Royal Astronomical Society (in Monthly Notices of the RAS (1958), vol.118, pages 411-431).

He was Director of the Paris Observatory from 1945 to 1963 (see biographical notice at the website of the Observatoire de Paris http://www.obspm.fr/histoire/paris/danjon.fr.shtml).

He won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1958.

Danjon died in 1967 in Paris.