Jean Nicolas Fortin (August 9, 1750 - 1831)

Jean Nicolas Fortin was born on August 9, 1750 in Mouchy-la-Ville, Île de France.

He became an engineer and mechanician, and got employed by the King and the Royal family for producing globes and spheres.

During his life, he is known to have produced a total of two publications; both are improved and updated editions of John Flamsteed's star atlas, "Atlas Coelestis" (Flamsteed 1729). These two works were published in French as "Atlas Céleste," in the years 1776 ad 1795: His first work, labelled the second edition of Flamsteed's atlas (Fortin 1776), included work by Pierre-Charles Le Monnier, F. Pasumot, and Nicholas Louis de Lacaille. The second one, the third edition of "Atlas Céleste" (Fortin 1795), was updated by Jerôme de Lalande and Pierre Méchain. Because of Méchain's involvement, it includes, in particular, many of the nebulae discovered by Messier and Méchain, many cartographed here for the first time, and in particular most of Méchain's additional findings, i.e., M104, M105, M106, M107, M108, and M109B (NGC 3953). It also includes most of the nebulae printed in Johann Elert Bode's star atlas of 1782, "Vorstellung der Gestirne" (Bode 1782) which had in turn used the data from Fortin's 1776 atlas. Fortin's 1795 edition was also published in Portuguese in 1804 (Fortin 1804).

Fortin died in 1831 in Paris.

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