Delisle J.N., (1688-1768), astronomer

Categories / Science. Education/Personalia
DELISLE Josephe Nicolas (Osip Nikolaevich) (1688-1768), French astronomer, Member of the Paris Academy of Sciences, Foreign Honorary Member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Lived in St. Petersburg from 1725. Member of the Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1726-47) and the first director of the Astronomical Observatory in St. Petersburg, establishing systematic astronomical observation and accurate geodetic surveys in Russia. Thanks to Delisle's suggestion, a cannon-shot released exactly at noon has reported the time to St. Petersburg residents since 1735. In 1739-40, Delisle headed the Geography Department of the Academy of Sciences. In 1747, he returned to France. He secretly sent many of maps of Russia to France and published some of them, for which lost his academic pension.

O. N. Ansberg. Delisle Josephe Nicolas (Osip Nikolaevich)
Нестьев И. В. Из истории русского музыкального авангарда: Ст. первая: Артур Лурье - комиссар по делам музыки // Сов. музыка, 1991
История Академии наук СССР. М.; Л., 1958 Russian Academy of Sciences
Pulkovo Observatory