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A Brief History of Telescopes |
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Friday, 27 July 2007 |
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The history of telescopes dates back hundreds of years. Though the exact history of telescopes is in dispute, the optical device was likely invented in the shop of a Dutch spectacle maker named Hans Lippershey. The history of telescopes may have begun when two children were playing with lenses in Lippershey’s shop in the 1600s. The kids put together two lenses, and discovered that they could see distant landmarks, including a far away church, in vivid clarity.
Lippershey followed up on the discovery, and soon was building a first form of the telescope that he called a “looker.” In 1608, Lippershey tried to sell it to the Dutch army, but his offer was turned down because others claimed that they were the true inventor of the telescope.Though telescopes were created in several European countries, the history of telescopes is most associated with Galileo in Italy. Within a month of Lippershey trying to sell his “looker” to the Dutch Army, word of the invention reached Venice. Galileo “reinvented” the telescope, but the instrument was met with criticism. Critics thought that the new invention only created optical illusions, and any image seen could not be trusted as true and real. Galileo also caused quite a stir when he published articles outlining new findings that changed many common perceptions. He reported that the moon was not smooth, as previously thought, but rather rough and covered with craters. With his telescope, Galileo also found that the Milky Way was composed of millions of stars and Jupiter had four moons. Later in the history of telescopes, a key figure was Isaac Newton. Newton renovated the telescope using a parabolic mirror to collect light and concentrate the image before it was presented to the eyepiece. This resulted in the reflective telescope, that gave sharper, better images. |
