Gérard de Vaucouleurs
Gérard Henri de Vaucouleurs ( born April 25, 1918 in Paris, † October 7, 1995 in Austin, Texas ) was a French-American astronomer.
He begins his work at the Institute of Astrophysics in Paris. After a stay in London, he goes to Australia in 1951 and conducts research at the city's Mount Stromlo Observatory. From 1960 he works and researches at the University of Texas.
His research activities were the galaxies. He is co-author of the Third Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies. His research on bright, relatively nearby galaxies led to the discovery of the local supercluster and the Antlia Dwarf Galaxy. Already in 1948 he published the law of Vaucouleurs or de - Vaucouleurs profile as a function of distance describes the brightness distribution in elliptical galaxies from the center. One of the biggest Mars crater has been named after him in 2000.
Works
- Physics of the Planet Mars ( 1954)
- Reference Catalogue of Bright Galaxies (1964, 1976, 1991)