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Elizabeth A.Sackler Center for Feminist Art

Hortense Lepaut

b. 1723, Paris; d. 1788, France

The correct spelling of this name is HORTENSE LEPAUTE.

In 1757, astronomer and mathematician Hortense Lepaute was hired by the director of the Paris Observatory to study the path of Halley’s comet, which was due to return in 1759. She also charted the paths of eclipses and, in 1762, calculated the precise time of an upcoming solar eclipse. As a scientific writer, she edited the astronomy annual of the Académie des Sciences.