Nicholas Louis de Lacaille (March 15, 1713 - March 21, 1762)
was the first to make a catalogue of southern deep sky objects.
You can read about him here.
http://www.seds.org/messier/xtra/Bios/lacaille.html
His catalogue is here:
Lacaille's Catalog of Nebulae of the Southern Sky
http://www.seds.org/messier/xtra/history/lacaille.html
He observed from Cape Town with a 0.5" refractor.
I visited France this year and took some pictures. You can see them here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/dunlop1826/Lacaille