Honore Flaugergues

Honore Flaugergues (May 16th 1755 with Fish ponds - November 20th 1830) is a Astronome amateur French.

Justice of the Peace in his birthplace of Fish ponds, Flaugergues is an autodidact and a scientist accomplished amateur. He writes a report/ratio on the health of the workmen working in the fabric factories, Observations on the influence of work relating to the manufacture of the wool fabrics on the health of the workmen who work there in manufactures of Fish ponds in Vivarais , which will be transmitted and read in front of the Royal Assemblée of medicine in 1779.

Later, it organizes the first archaeological excavation campaigns with Alba-the-Roman, in 1819 - 1821.

But it is as an astronomer that there remains most known, in particular after having been the first to discover “large comet of 1811” (C/1811 F1). It is also famous to have discovered the clouds of dust of Mars. In 1809, whereas it tries to measure the Period of rotation of the planet Mars by timing the regular reappearances of yellow spots which were used to him as reference mark, it notices light inconsistencies in the observations, which lead it to think that what it observes does not locate at the surface of Mars but is moving in its atmosphere; what later, one will definitively interpret as being local storms of dust. The attribution of this discovery with Flaugergues remains however discussed, certain sources estimating that with its Telescope of 13,4 m Focale and an enlargement of 90 times, it could not have observed such a phenomenon.

To pay homage to him, one gave his name to a crater on the planet Mars.

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