La Hire at Paris Observatory: A Contribution to Modern Astronomy

摘要

Philippe de La Hire (1640-1718) can be considered as one of the leading french astronomers of the second half of the 17th1 century and of the beginning of the 18th century. Whereas he was initially oriented towards painting, under the influence of his father, he rapidly exerted his skills towards very eclectic domains, including geometry, architecture, gnomonic, cartography, mechanics and astronomy. Starting from 1682 he moved into the Paris observatory where he stayed for more then 35 years, gathering an enormous quantity of studies and observations, mainly devoted to astronomy and meteorology. In this paper we make a qualitative review of these works, emphasizing the very precious value of some observational data, in the scope of modern studies using it, as it is the case for daily observations of the transit of the Sun along the meridian as well as the recording of solar spots in the context of the Maunder minimum.