The beginnings of the telescope start at around 2560 BCE in ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyption artisans polished semi precious and precious stone, glass and rock to decorate Sarcophagi and other precious objects. Often these polished pieces were used to create "eyes" in statuary.

Since then glass and crystal objects have been ever more refined and polished. Inventors learned to better cut thinner and more exact sections of glass and to combine these pieces of glass in ways to reveal more unexpected vistas about the world around us. Eventually reflective or mirrored surfaces and refractive lenses, were developed.

Our telescope technology continues to become more complex and advanced. We are able to read vast ranges of the electro-magnetic specrum from infra-red to X-rays and beyond. And by placing powerful telescopes floating in space above us, we have expanded our window on the universe...

• 470 BCE - A Chinese philosopher named Mozi used concave mirrors to focus the sun's rays.
  
  
• 4 BCE - Water was used by Seneca the younger to magnify letters and words.
  
  
• 23 CE - Pliny the elder discovers that doctors used a crystal ball to focus the sun's light intensly enough to cauterize wounds. Both of these events are precusers of the telescope lens.
  
  
• Tenth Century CE - Viking pendants and jewelry made of Visby lenses, lenses made from rock crystal (quartz) probably originating from the Middle East, had magnifying properties.
  
  


• 1011-1021 - Ibn al-Haytham (also known as Alhazen) writes the Kitab al-Manazir or Book of Optics. He wrote about the effects of pinhole and concave lenses in his book, which was influential in the development of the modern telescope. The earliest evidence of "a magnifying device, a convex lens forming a magnified image," also dates back to his Book of Optics.



• 1520 - Englishman Leonard Digges, a mathematician, invents both the reflecting and refracting telescopes.
  
  
• 1608 - Dutchman Hans Lipperhay, a lens maker applies for a patent for his telescope design.
  
  
• 1609 - Galileo refines and improves Lipperhay's design and renames it first the 'Perspicillum' - then later changes the name of his device to "telescopium" in Latin. He went on to use his telescope to observe and champion Copernicus’s ideas of the order of the universe.
  
  
• 1616 - The reflecting telescope again makes an appearance as invented by Niccolo Zucchi.
  
  
• 1663 - A telescope with a parabolic primary mirror and an elliptical secondary mirror is created, this time by a Scottish mathematician named James Gregory.
  
  

Storm on Saturn Image captured by Hubble Telescope

• 1668 - Sir Isaac Newton designs a telescope incorporating a parabolic mirror and a flat diagonal secondary mirror.
  
  
• 1733 - The achromatic lens is created by Chester Moore Hall. This lens corrects for color abberations, allowing different wavelengths of light to be focused at the same spot.
  
  
• 1880 - The orthoscopic eyepiece is invented by Ernst Abbe, becoming the most common eyepiece for "amatuer telescopes."
  
  
• 1910 - George Ritchey and Henri Chretien invent the Ritchey-Chretien telescope that is used in many large astronomical observatories.
  
  
• 1930 - The Schmidt camera was designed by Bernhard Schmidt.
  
  
• 1937 - A telescope which could pick up everything from radio to X rays was created by Grote Reber.
  
  
• 1944 - Dmitri Maksutov creates the Maksutov telescope.
  
  
• 1962 - UK launches orbiting solar telescope. Solar Telescopes are used to study the sun.
  
  
• 1990 - The Hubble Telescope is launched into orbit.
  
  
• 2013 - The James Webb Space Telescope is due to be launched and take over "viewing the Universe" from the Hubble.

News About Telescopes and History

FOXNews

Spitzer Telescope Spots Colorful Mix of Asteroids, May Aid Future Space Travel
Newswise (press release)
Newswise ? New research from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope reveals that asteroids somewhat near Earth, termed near-Earth objects, are a mixed bunch, ...
Mixed bag of space rocks found near Earthmsnbc.com

all 27 news articles »

msnbc.com

'Lost years' end for backyard supernova
Nature.com
As the first findings start to arrive from the Hubble Space Telescope since its repair last year, researchers are shedding new light on one of our nearest ...
'Star guts' pour out of decaying supernovaWired.co.uk

all 44 news articles »

Telegraph.co.uk

NASA spacecraft spots multiplanet solar system
CNET
The announcement came just a few days after a European team, using a different technique with a ground-based telescope, revealed the discovery of a solar ...
NASA scientists discover two giant planetsSan Francisco Chronicle
New Planets (a Lot of Them) in the Cosmic FamilyTIME
Kepler finds first double planet transiting systemAstronomy Now Online
Universe Today -SkyandTelescope.com -Inland Empire News
all 272 news articles »

Experience taare from zameen
Times of India
Learn all about the World Wide Telescope (WWT), that enables a computer to function as a virtual telescope. Microsoft Research is conducting a workshop on ...

and more »

Space.com

Space Shuttle Commander, Spacewalker to Leave NASA
Space.com
By SPACE.com Staff The space shuttle commander who led the final mission to fix the Hubble Space Telescope is leaving NASA, as is a two-time spacewalker, ...

and more »

Celestron - The Legendary Telescope Company
Boosh News (press release) (blog)
But it was another S&T article that proved especially influential in Celestron's history. As Johnson was nearing the completion of his 183/4-inch scope, ...