A history of astronomical optics in France
Abstract
In this paper, we explore the advances made in France in astronomical optics. They were quite important in the seventeenth century thanks to Mersenne, Auzout and Picard. Progress in the eighteenth century was less remarkable and many instruments had to be imported from England, but in the following century the developments were again significant thanks in particular to Arago, Foucault, Fizeau, Loewy and the Henry brothers, working with very competent instrument builders. The French school of optics flourished at the end of the nineteenth century and during the twentieth century, thanks to Fabry, his collaborators and successors, as illustrated by Perot, Chrétien, Lyot, Danjon, Paul, Couder, Courtès, Connes, Labeyrie, Baranne and Lemaitre, among others. However, from time to time there was a trend to build instruments that were too original and with little or no future, at the expense of more conventional but better-adapted instruments.
Keywords
adaptive optics
Cassegrain telescope
coelostat
coronagraph
coudé equatorial
Danjon astrolabe
instruments for astrometry
interferometer
Lyot's polarizing filter
photometer
polarimeter
quadrant
Richey-Crétien telescope
siderostat
speckle interferometry
spectrometer
2022JAHHvol25/2022JAHH...25...03L.pdf