title: [The delayed emergence of the printing chronograph in French observatories (late 19th - early 20th centuries].
abstract: Western observatories became scientific factories from the mid-19th century. Astrometry symbolized the transition to an industrious economy of scientific practices. The printing chronograph, which reduced the personal equations of the observers, was, first in the United States, then in England, the symbolic instrument of this transformation. In France, the initiatives of the astronomer Liais were prototypical. In the practices of the Hendaye Observatory, and thanks to the abbé Verschaffel, the printing chronograph made its definitive entry in French observatories at the beginning of the 20th century. Excessive centralization of French astronomy, the authoritarianism of Urbain Le Verrier, the director of the Paris Observatory, and the poor market for scientific instruments explain why the printing chronograph took root, belatedly, in France.
authors.affiliation: a Laboratoire Printemps , Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines , France.
authors.forename: Jérôme
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lamy
authors.forename: Frédéric
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Soulu
mesh_terms: D001256:Astronomy / Q000266:history* / Q000295:instrumentation; D005602:France; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D011327:Printing