François Gonnessiat

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Asteroids discovered: 2

915 Cosette	December 14, 1918
931 Whittemora	March 19, 1920

François Gonnessiat (May 22, 1856 (Nurieux-Volognat)–October 18, 1934) was a French astronomer.

He worked at the Observatory of Lyon. In 1901 became director of the Quito (Ecuador) 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.

[edit] Obituary

• Obs 57 (1931) 386 (incorrectly says he was director of Algiers Observatory only until 1916, see [1] [2])