François Gonnessiat

Who was François Gonnessiat?

François Gonnessiat was a French astronomer.

He worked at the Observatory of Lyon. In 1889 he won the Lalande Prize for astronomy from the French Academy of Sciences; 1901 became director of the Quito Observatory for the purpose of making geodetic measurements. He became a well known and respected member of the academic scene of the city, where a street is named after him. He was director of the Algiers Observatory from 1908 to 1931, where one of his colleagues was Benjamin Jekhovsky.

He extensively observed comets, and also discovered a couple of asteroids. The asteroid 1177 Gonnessia was named in his honour.