From 1742 to 1754, at the recommendation of the mathematician Leonhard Euler, he was made professor of mathematics at Berlin's Academy of Sciences and astronomer at its observatory. His reports from this time include De la Situation la plus avantageuse des planètes pour découvrir les irrégularités de leurs mouvemens[1], Sur les Éclipses des étoiles fixes par la lune[2], and Description d'un instrument qui se trouve à l'observatoire de Berlin[3]Archived 2007-06-13 at the Wayback Machine. In his Rapport de quelques observations célestes faites à l'observatoire Royal, Kies wrote, "Observations on eclipses are extremely useful, especially the ones that are exact. They serve primarily to understand, if the theories on the Sun and the Moon are well or badly ascertained in the astronomical tables, and can either confirm them, or give us a need to reform them."[4]Archived 2007-06-13 at the Wayback Machine
Kies was one of the first to propagate Newton's discoveries in Germany, and dedicated two of his works to the Englishman: De viribus centralibus (Tübingen, 1758) and De lege gravitatis (Tübingen, 1773). Kies is also the author of a work on lunar influences: De influxu lunae in partes terrae mobiles (Tübingen, 1769). He wrote many other works, both in French and in Latin, on astronomy.
Kies corresponded with Euler from 1747 to 1767. Their correspondence consists of 8 letters, all of which were written by Kies.