# Louis Fabry

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**Louis Fabry** (20 April 1862 – 26 January 1939) was a French [astronomer](/source/Astronomer)

## Biography

Louis Fabry was born in [Marseille](/source/Marseille) in 1862 to a Provençal family with five boys. His brothers [Charles](/source/Charles_Fabry), [Eugène](/source/Eug%C3%A8ne_Fabry) and Auguste were, respectively, a [physicist](/source/Physicist), a [mathematician](/source/Mathematician) and a magistrate.

From childhood he showed a keen taste for [astronomy](/source/Astronomy) and [mathematics](/source/Mathematics). He joined the [École Polytechnique](/source/%C3%89cole_Polytechnique) in 1880, before his brother Eugène and five years before his brother Charles.

After receiving his licenciate, he became a student in the school of astronomy that [Admiral Mouchez](/source/Am%C3%A9d%C3%A9e_Mouchez) had just opened at the [Paris Observatory](/source/Paris_Observatory), where he discovered his first and only comet, [C/1885 X1 (Fabry)](/source/C/1885_X1_(Fabry)), in December 1885.[1] He was then sent to the [Nice Observatory](/source/Nice_Observatory) and remained there until 1890. It was during his stay in Nice he married and became widowed a few months after.

Back in his hometown, he joined the [Marseille Observatory](/source/Marseille_Observatory) where he was promoted to assistant astronomer in 1895. He remained there until his retirement in 1924.

He died in [Les Lecques](/source/Les_Lecques) in 1939.

## References

1. L. Fabry (1885). ["Observations de la Cométe Fabry"](https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x002080834&seq=570) [Observations of Comet Fabry] (in French). *Bulletin Astronomique*. **2**: 564–565.

- "Louis Fabry (1862-1939)", Jean Bosler, *Ciel et Terre* **56** (1940), pp. 36–39, [Bibcode:1940C&T....56...36B](https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1940C%26T....56...36B).
- ["Fabry, Louis"](http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2830901372.html), Jacques R. Lévy, *Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography*, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008.
- ["Notice nécrologique sur L. Fabry"](http://ark.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k62388260/f1.image), Gaston Fayet, *Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences*, **208** (1939), pp. 545–547.

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