In the early 1600s, the Italian word telescope appeared, which was the root of the word telescope. Due to their smaller sizes, the telescopes were also less able to bring colors into focus or align with each other. The eyepiece in early telescopes moved out of sight or out of focus, so images appearing in the telescope could move out of sight. It was virtually impossible to see far-off objects.

Telescopes in the early years were particularly small and had a limited field of view. In the 1600s, Galileo’s telescope, and others built at the time, had serious technical problems.

The tubes contained polished lenses and mirrors that were used to magnify images and reflect light. Tubes could be made from tin, lead, cardboard, or wood attached to each other by wire, cloth, or leather ties or glue. As early as the 1800s, telescopes were made of long tubes with cylinder sections. The early telescopes resembled each other. The First Telescope: What did it look like? Later, Isaac Newton worked on developing the reflecting telescope which now dominates astronomy. Galileo’s drawings are more cartographic than Harriot’s, indicating the difference between light and shade just as a map of the Earth would depict water and land. While Galileo Galilei became famous for his discoveries, it was the English astronomer Thomas Harriot on 26 July 1609 who first sketched the Moon from his telescope observations.It was the sun, not the earth, that was the center of the universe.Similarities in lunar terrain and Earth’s geological make-up.He made the following telescopic observations: Galileo made his own telescope after hearing about Lipperhey’s discovery in the Netherlands and became famous for it. You have probably come across references to Galileo in previous research about telescopes a number of times. How Did Telescope Change the World Of Science?.The First Telescope: What did it look like?.Jacob Metius was a Dutch spectacle manufacturer from Alkmaar who was one of the three. The claims he made were never verified, but he managed to make his mark on history.ĭuring the Dutch Golden Age, three inventors contacted the Dutch government and asked for permission to patent their designs for Telescopes. Zacharias Janssen of the Netherlands claimed to have discovered the first modern telescope sometime later. He was the first to do this, thus receiving credit for being the person who pushed the development of the telescope forward. As he reduced the amount of light and focused it, the images became clear but were dim at first. This sparked curiosity in Lippershey and led him to experiment with different lenses until he came up with the concave eyepiece combined with the convex objective lens.Īccording to Lippershey, he put a mask on his telescope that allowed only a small amount of light into it. The story goes that the boys combined two lenses and made a distant weathervane appear larger when they put them together. It was during this time that Hans Lippershey devised his groundbreaking invention.Īs Lippershey was working in his shop one day in 1608, he noticed that two boys were playing with some of the lenses. The ability of lens makers to cut and polish glasses improved considerably towards the end of the 1500s and into the early 1600s.

However, these glasses had weak, dull, and cumbersome lenses and consequently, they were not suitable for astronomical observation due to less magnifying power. Who invented the telescope? The very first telescopes were created by makers of eyeglasses and lenses during the 1400s.

1600s telescope drawing