Francis Pease was an American astronomer and designer of optical instruments, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He served as an observer and optician at Yerkes Observatory (1901–1904), and instrument-maker at Mount Wilson Observatory (1908–1913), where he designed the 100-in telescope, as well as the 50-ft interferometer telescope by means of which he made direct measurements of star diameters. He was also involved in the design of the Hale Telescope. In 1928 he found the first planetary nebula in a globular cluster (M15), now catalogued as Pease 1; it had been previously cataloged as a star by Friedrich Kustner in 1921.