Pierre François André Méchain , born with Laon the August 16th 1744 and died in Castellón of Planed (Spain) the September 20th 1804, is a Astronome French. With his friend Charles Messier, it is one of those which discovered the most objects of the deep sky.

Its life

Pierre Méchain is the son of the architect Pierre François Méchain. He appears gifted in Mathématiques and in Physique but must give up its studies for lack of money. Its talents in Astronomie are noticed by Joseph Jerome Lefrançois de Lalande (1732-1807) of which he becomes the friend and who engages it as assistant. He also binds with Charles Messier in 1774. In 1777, it marries Bore-Therese Marjou, of which it has two boys and a girl. It is allowed with the Academy of Science in 1782. It is in charge of the knowledge of times in 1788 and fulfills a geodetic mission between 1792 and 1795, year when it enters to the Bureau of longitudes.

Its discoveries

Pierre Méchain is known especially to have discovered a major part of the objects of the Catalog Messier. Between 1779 and 1782, it does not discover less than 29 objects of which it indicates the position to his friend Charles Messier, who includes them in his catalog. Méchain discovers two comets in 1781 and determines their orbit thanks to his mathematical knowledge. In 1781 and 1799, it does not discover less than seven Comet S. It also carries out, with Jean-Baptiste Delambre, a measurement of the arc Dunkirk - Barcelona in order to determine the Mètre precisely, but it refuses to communicate its measurements because of an anomaly which obsesses it until its death. It is besides to remake measurement that it turns over in Spain, where it dies of the yellow fever.

Publications

• Base of the decimal metric system , with Jean-Baptiste Delambre (3 volumes, 1806) Text in line 1 2 3