Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix (23 November 1718, in Toulouse - 18 January 1802, in Toulouse) was a French astronomer. He has usually been credited with the discovery of the Ring Nebula in 1779, but in fact he independently rediscovered it upon reading a report of Charles Messier regarding Messier's own observations of Comet Bode. His description that the object was "...as large as Jupiter and resembles a planet which is fading" led to the terminology "planetary nebula".[1]
Jean-Michel Faidit, Darquier et la découverte, à Toulouse, de la nébuleuse de la Lyre. Revue l’Astronomie, juillet-août 2005, pp. 346-53.