Nicolas Louis de Lacaille. Portrait of the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille (1713-62). Lacaille was a professor at the College de France. He was sent by the British Royal Academy of Sciences to study the Southern sky from the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. In less than a year he mapped around 10,000 stars. He is also known for his geodetic work with which he showed for the first time the true shape of the Earth.