Marie-Charles Damoiseau

Baron Marie-Charles-Théodore de Damoiseau de Montfort (6 April 1768 in Besançon – 6 August 1846) was a French astronomer.

Damoiseau was originally an artillery officer but he left France in 1792 during the French Revolution. He worked as assistant director at the Lisbon Observatory before he returned to France in 1807.

In 1825, he was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences. He was a member of the Bureau des Longitudes.

He is best known for publishing lunar tables (positions of the Moon) between 1824 and 1828.

Scientific work

Theory of the Moon

In 1818, Laplace proposed that the Académie des Sciences in Paris set up a prize to be awarded to whoever succeeded in constructing lunar tables based solely on the law of universal gravity. In 1820, the prize was awarded to Carlini and Plana and to Damoiseau by a committee that included Laplace.

Satellites of Jupiter