Telescopes - A Distorted History

If you simply must buy a telescope today, I urge you to visit Dollar General Store and check out the cheap toy bin. You may find a cheap plastic thing that has a cheap distorted plastic magnifier at each end.

Take it home and look at Jupiter, that bright star-like object high above the southern horizon.  It will only then that you may begin to appreciate the roots of telescopic astronomy, the anniversary of which we have been celebrating this year - The International Year of Astronomy -2009.

The telescope above is a replica of Galileo’s first. As years went by they improved.  Neverthelss he never owned a telescope that could compare with the poorest instruments of the last half century.

Don’t get the idea that Galileo or any other astronomer of his time ever saw anything through a telescope that rivaled cheap telescopes of today.  The original telescope designs used simple lenses.  As it turned out, the world had to wait quite awhile before the technology necessary to improve this invention to work well. When you take a look through a modern telescope, you will see things Galileo could not even imagine

Optical Perfection - a Continuing 400 Year Pursuit

We’ll be posting many relevant links over the next few weeks.