Who Invented the Telescope?

This has been a question many people have asked. There are four men who are involved in the answer to this question that we are still puzzling about today. Hans Lippershey, Zacharias Janssen, Jacob Metius and Galileo Galilei.

Hans Lippershey was an eyeglass maker and the first person to apply for a patent on the idea of a device that could magnify what you are looking at three times. People argued against him trying to patent this idea, saying that he stole the idea from another eyeglass maker, Zacharias Janssen. Jansen and Lippershey lived in the same town, and were both eyeglass makers, but there is no proof that  Lippershey made his telescope alone. In the end, Lippershey got credit for creating the telescope and Jansen got credit for creating the compound microscope. The topic of who created the microscope is debated as well, but as the article, “Who Invented The Telescope?” By Lauren Cox reads, “while Jansen is credited with inventing the compound microscope. Both appear to have contributed to the development of both instruments.”  meaning that both men appeared to have both worked on creating the microscope and telescope.

Soon another man, Jacob Metius was thrown into the mix. Jacob Metius applied for a patent on the telescope a few weeks after Lippershey did. The government soon turned down both offers for a patent because of counterclaims. In the end, Jacob Metius got a small reward but Lippershey was paid a lot of money to have his telescopes remade and sold or used.

Lastly, Galileo Galilei was involved in this mess when he had heard about the first telescopes and created his own with a few tweaks and then presented it to the Venetian Senate, and in return they set him up for life as a lecturer at the University of Padua. Galileo was also the first to look at the sky and the stars with a telescope, resulting in the discovery of  the Sun’s sunspots and Jupiter’s set of moons as well was many other things, that you can check out here.

Lastly, where is my thought in all of this. Personally, I feel that there is so much more out in the universe that has not yet been seen and just like Galileo, I want to use something we already have and see the world and the universe in a new way as he used the telescope to look at the stars.

Four men who are all considered to be the creator of the telescope, but who actually made the first one? Many people have been wondering this, and many more to come are going to ask this question as well.

Sources:

http://www.space.com/21950-who-invented-the-telescope.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microscope

http://users.etown.edu/r/riegerj/media/Timeline.htm

Images:

http://galileo.rice.edu/images/things/hevelius_telescope.gif

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/55/5f/4e/555f4e3a021532dcf6fda32aaf8248d6.jpg

a magnifying glass for the unknown

   

    Who invented the telescope? Why is the telescope important to life as we know it? It is still unknown who invented the telescope, but the first person to apply for a patent for it was a Dutch eyeglass maker named Hans Lippershey (or Lipperhey), so he got the credit for it. One story goes that he got the idea of the telescope after watching two kids in his shop hold up two lenses that made a weather vane that was far away seem like it was closer. Others suspected, at the time, that he stole the design from another eyeglass maker named Zacharias Jansen.

Galileo had heard of the telescope and made one of his own with some improvements. He was the first person who decide to point it up at the sky to see what he could observe. It is thanks to these people that we have the technology we do today. Back then, before the telescope, we didn’t have solar panels, implantable heart monitors, water purification systems, and many more. It is simply the science of space that has improved our knowledge.   

It is thanks to these people that we have the technology we do today. Back then, before the telescope, we didn’t have solar panels, implantable heart monitors, water purification systems, and many more.

As technology evolved, scientists were able to see other stars. In the 19th century astronomers gathered information about the chemical composition and motions of celestial objects using a new instrument called a spectroscope. In the 1970’s people began to build what would later be known as the hubble telescope. On April 25th, 1990, the Telescope was launched into an orbit roughly 380 miles above the earth's surface.

Today we can use technology like this to observe other planets and moons, and other celestial objects. For me I don’t think life would be the same without the telescope. I would still think that there are only a few other planets. I would never be able to ask big questions, like what isn beyond the observable universe, how far can we travel, and most of all, is there other life somewhere out there? Without the invention of the telescope people like me would have never wondered about these questions because they thought they knew what was out there, but really they had no idea.

Sources Cited:

Dunbar, Brian. "Telescope History." NASA. NASA, 23 Dec. 2003. Web. 27 Jan. 2016.

Cox, Lauren. "Who Invented the Telescope? | The First Telescope." Space.com. N.p., July-Aug. 2013. Web. 27 Jan. 2016.

The Telescope

The Telescope

The first recorded and working telescope was made in 1608. This is relatively new technology, and has increased rapidly since then. The first telescope is credited to a man named Hans Lippershey, although there is some speculation about this. Hans Lippershey made a refracting telescope, one of the earlier kinds. A refracting telescope uses a lens as the objective to form the image. This was the first kind of practical telescope.

In 1609, Galileo came out with the next new kind of telescope. It was based off the one Lippershey had made, but had about 3x magnification. Galileo later went on to make a 30x one. This is sort of how science works, someone making an invention, and then someone else taking their idea and making it better. Johannes Kepler did just this, in 1611, when he made a telescope that used a convex lens, unlike Galileo’s concave one.

Into modern times, the Hubble telescope was launched in 1990. It has a 2.4 meter mirror, and can see in the near infrared, near ultraviolet, and visible spectrum. It is still in use today, capturing more and more images. The Hubble space telescope was named after Edwin Hubble.

The age old wanting is for knowledge. What’s out there? How far can we go into the universe? Curiosity has ebbed its way into how we think and perceive the world, and the telescope is helping us understand a few things. There is always more to be discovered, always more missions to send to space, and always more things to see.

Works Cited:

"Hubble Space Telescope." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2015. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Space_Telescope>.

"History of the Telescope." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2015. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_telescope>.

"Telescope." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2015. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescope>.

Image links: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgNt-d5i8h3SZt6hyOrjP1hV7Agql63xNSfGm_EufRUEJEgtOzCByW2EsVsVJ-AWIs-VTZHA23x1HxCt4TlYdOWzl06iHN63DbHCGjhkeKBNMy01mPV_1jezUPG42HaDuN5hmmL1OAdVtE/s1600/galileo.jpg

http://d1jqu7g1y74ds1.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/galileostelescope.jpg

The Invention and Early History of the Telescope

The first practical telescopes were made in 1608 by a Dutchman by the name of Hans Lippershey. Two other Dutchmen, Zacharias Janssen and Jacob Metius, claimed to make the discovery, and the three share credit for the marvelous invention.

In 1609, a scientist named Galileo Galilei heard of a device which would allow one to see things bigger than they were. After tinkering with it, he made a telescope that could magnify objects to thirty-three times their size. In 1610, Galileo used the improved telescope to see spots on the Sun, phases of Venus, four moons of Jupiter, and mountains and craters on the moon. He used these observations to support Copernicus’s theory that the Sun was the center of the Solar System.

The name telescope was coined in 1611 by Prince Frederico Cesi. It comes from the Greek word teleskopos, meaning far-seeing, and was first applied to the Galilean telescope.

In 1611, Kepler suggested an improvement to the telescope. If both lenses were convex, things would appear bigger, and the field of view would be greater. In 1655, an astronomer named Christiaan Huygens used a Keplerian telescope to discover Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. He later used the data from that telescope to prove that Saturn’s rings were made up of many chunks of dust and ice.

As you can see, the early telescopes contributed a lot to astronomy. Today’s telescopes are huge. The Hubble Space Telescope, which is in orbit around the Earth, weighs twelve tons! But it all started with a Dutch glasses-maker.

Works Cited

DeVorkin, David H., and Robert W. Smith. Hubble: Imaging Space and Time. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, 2008. Print.

"The First Telescopes (Cosmology: Tools)." The First Telescopes (Cosmology: Tools). N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2015.

"History of the Telescope." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2015.

"Online Etymology Dictionary." Online Etymology Dictionary. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2015.

Image credit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moons_of_Jupiter ,

http://www.geocities.ws/peterochocki/other/binocs/binocs.html ,

http://www.expertsmind.com/topic/optics/keplerian-refractor-95128.aspx

http://www.myschoolhouse.com/courses/O/1/36.asp

Telescopes are Awesome

The Telescope

Hey you reading this you probably know what a telescope is? don’t you! It’s that thing you look out of to see things far away from you. You probably know the telescope best from movies with pirates in them. Those things are useful, right? Lets see where, who, and when they were made! The earliest telescope ever used was in 1609. There were many people that claimed they invented the telescope such as Hans Lippershey (who is mostly credited), Zacharias Janssen, and Jacob Metius of Alkmaar. The telescopes supposedly consisted of convex lens, and a concave eyepiece. Soon after that, Galileo used that design to make his own, it worked, and the telescope was born.

The telescope was known to have been invented somewhere in the Netherlands. The telescope has so many importances to it, pirates used to use it to see enemy ships far off the coast to ready for battle, while scientists use it to make amazing discoveries about our world.  Telescopes are now getting so advanced, that scientists are sending them up into space! Recently The Hubble was sent out into space to bring back astronomical research. This amazing, modern telescope can see space better than anything else.

Well, why are people even that interested in space objects? Because space objects allow you to see a world beyond the eyes. Now you probably use binoculars more than you use telescopes. But let me tell you, telescopes are way more amazing and have so many more features and history as explained above. Now get up from wherever you are and go make a discovery with a telescope.

Galileo, The Father of Modern Science

Galileo, the father of modern observational astronomy, opened up revolutionary frontiers in what would become modern day astronomical study and research.  Our knowledge and understanding of science and astronomy would be unimaginably different

if Galileo had not developed the heliocentric

model of the solar system and validated, through telescopic viewing Venus, many constellations and several moons.  Galileo was a pioneer in the field of astronomy, and while many of his theories were considered controversial in his time, the impact which they have made in modern astronomy cannot be argued.

The heliocentric theory is one of the greatest discoveries Galileo has ever made.  The heliocentric model is a model showing that the Earth and the other planets revolve around a relatively stationary Sun at the center of the Solar System.  The word comes from the Greek words helios "sun" and kentron "center.”  Historically, heliocentrism was opposed to geocentrism, which placed the Earth at the center.  Although Galileo was not the first to support the heliocentric model of the solar system, he was entirely responsible for the idea that the

sun is the center of the universe.  Galileo was responsible for this discovery, but he had nothing but a telescope to validate his findings and it was Galileo’s findings through the telescope which supported heliocentrism stronger than at any other time in history .  Without Galileo’s research, measurement, validation and theory of heliocentric model, our beliefs and philosophies of space and time would be completely different from what they are today.   This is why I believe that Galileo could well possibly be one of the greatest scientists/astronomers the world has ever seen.


Galileo is also responsible for the discovery of Lo, Callisto, Europa and Ganymede, four of Jupiter’s moons.  The four moons were discovered sometime between 1609 and 1610 when Galileo made improvements to his telescope. Galileo’s innovative improvements to the telescope, enabled

him to observe celestial bodies more distinctly than had ever before. Galileo's discovery of Jupiter’s moons showed the importance of the telescope as a tool for astronomers by proving that there were objects in space that could not be seen by the naked eye.   More importantly, the incontrovertible discovery of celestial bodies orbiting something other than the Earth dealt a serious blow to the geocentric theory in which everything orbits around the Earth.  These were incredible discoveries at the time, and more proof of Galileo’s leadership in the research, and science of astronomy.


Part of Galileo’s contribution to astronomy were his many improvements to the mechanical devices utilized in astronomy.  The most important and impactful improvements  developed by Galileo were to the telescope.  Galileo made his first telescope in 1609, modeled after telescopes

produced in other parts of Europe at could magnify objects three times. He created a telescope later that could magnify objects twenty times.  With this telescope, he was able to look at the moon, discover the four satellites of Jupiter, observe a supernova, verify the phases of Venus, and discover sunspots.  These observations and discoveries could never have been made if it weren’t for Galileo’s amazing scientific research and beliefs.

In a time where opposing philosophies created tension in the scientific community, Galileo brought innovation, validation and discovery to his beloved astronomy.  It was his passion which enabled Galileo to persevere, despite the Spanish Inquisition, and bring never before seen technologies and discoveries to support his beliefs.  Galileo, the Father of Modern Observational Astronomy, was a scientist who supported his beliefs by creating new ways to make new discoveries, and, in the end, these discoveries supported all which Galileo believed.

Works Cited

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galilean_moonshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galilean_moons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliocentrism
http://galileo.rice.edu/bio/narrative_6.html
http://solar-center.stanford.edu/galileo/
http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos_who_level2/galileo.html