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.
  
  
• 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

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BANNER REOPENING Baltimore Sun, United States - Nov 20, 2008 ... a previous display that explores the history of America's first ladies and exhibits dresses and gowns they've worn. The Vassar Telescope, which anchors ... Video: Bush Re-opens American History Museum AssociatedPress Bush reopens renovated American history museum The Associated Press National Museum of American History Opens in Washington, DC Art Daily News Channel 8 all 339 news articles

Mapping the history of our galaxy - 2008-11-19 exduco.net, Italy - Nov 19, 2008 Newberg began searching for a telescope capable of such a survey and found LAMOST at the Xinglong Observing Station, 170 kilometers northeast of Beijing. ...

NASA astronaut speaks to students ASU Herald, AR - 11 hours ago Since then the Hubble Telescope has produced some of the most beautiful, inspiring and scientifically valuable pictures in the history of mankind. ...

Roma - Culture and History The Age, Australia - Nov 19, 2008 ... I had ever seen in a primeval state - a champaign region, spotted with wood, stretching as far as human vision or even the telescope could reach. ...

Miami Mayor Manny Diaz Named One of America's Best Leaders of 2008 MarketWatch - 14 hours ago ... Physics and Astronomy Professor at Caltech and the Chief Investigator for NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array Mission (Pasadena, CA); ...

NASA Hubble Space Telescope Daily Report #4740 Space Ref (press release) - Nov 19, 2008 ... range of metallicities in order to study the early formation history of the Milky Way and provide an independent estimate of the age of the universe. ...