The Telescope

The Telescope



The History of the Telescope Contrary to popular belief, the telescope was not actually invented by Galileo. Although just about every history book in the world says that hebuilt the first, he was in fact working on principles discovered by a Dutchman by the name of Hans Lippershey, who applied to patent a device that was used to hold two lenses apart, using them to makeobjects appear closer. Galileo heard of this idea after the patent was refused in 1608, and as result of it decide to build his own ‘looking glass’ based Lippershey’s work and findings. What he WAS thefirst person to do, however, was to use this wonderful new toy to look at the heavens for discovering the moons’ craters, the rings of Saturn, and Jupiter's four largest moons.

Because of, its basiccomponents of the looking glass had been around for years – concave and convex lenses had been used to improve and correct eyesight for well over three centuries. It wasn’t until 1611 that PrinceFrederick Sesi of Venice used the term ‘telescope’ to refer to Galileo’s new stargazing instrument, and about the same time the German scholar and amateur astronomer Johannes Kepler began tinkering withGalileo’s original design. By swapping the original concave lens for a convex lens and adding a third prism behind the eyepiece, Kepler created not only a wider viewing angle, but also the ability toproject images on to a clear white screen. Kepler’s invention and notes would become invaluable some three hundred years down the line, aiding in the invention of film projection equipment.Throughout the 17th Century some of sciences’ most notable names worked on modifications to the telescope. In 1668 Isaac Newton produced the first working reflective telescope, using copper and tin asmirrors in order to provide far greater magnification than that possible with a lens.

In 1789 the astronomer William Herschel took the next step towards true astronomical telescopes when he created a...