Tobias Mayer is a German astronomer, born in 1723 with Marbach (Wurtemberg), died in 1762 with Göttingen.

He professed mathematics at the University of Göttingen since 1750 and was in charge of the direction of the observatory of this city.

He imagined useful instruments, reformed several errors in the practical geometry, calculated the movements of the the Moon with an admirable precision, and deserved, by his Tables of the Moon , the Grand Prix decreed by the Bureau of longitudes of London (1755).

He improved also the measurement of the triangles for geodesy and had the first the idea to repeat the angles to attenuate the errors of measurement.

One owes with this scientist a catalog of 998 stars zodiacales, of which several were observed up to 26 times.

Its principal works, in addition to its Tables , are:

• Treated curves for the construction of the problems of geometry , in German, Augsburg, 1735;
• mathematical Atlas , 1745.