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Hanns Lippershey creates first documented telescope
Hans Lippershey, a Dutch spectacle maker, was the first to put two lences a certain distance apart to form a telescope. He applied for a patent, but was denied because there was a controversy on who had thought of the idea first. After this, telescopes were used to see ships or parties of people approaching over a distace. -
Gallileo Gallilei points first telescope at the sky to see the stars and planets
A renaisance man, Gallileo, adapted a telescope to view the stars and planets. He saw sun spots and moon craters, meaning that the moon believed to be a heavenly body was imperfect. He also saw moons orbiting jupiter, proving that not everything is geocentric. -
Marin Marsenne uses mirrors instead of lenses
A French theologian, philosopher, mathemetician and music theorist, discovered that using mirrors in a telescope instead of the convex lenses used before eliminates the problem of chromatic abberation. -
James Gregory uses concave primary and concave ellipsodial mirrors in his telescope
A Scotish mathemetician and astronomer used concave primary and concave illipsodial mirrors instead of the flat mirrors used before. These are used in telescopes today, but the opticians of 1663 could not make advanced enough mirrors to creat a clear image. -
Chester Morre Hall makes a telescope that reduces chromatic abberation
A British lawyer and inventor uses cemented crown and flint glass to create a new lense that doesn't show chromatic abberation. This a huge step in the quality of telescope images. -
William Herschel constructs a newtonian based reflector telescope
An orchestra director and astronomer from Bath engineers a new kind of reflector- newtonian based- and makes the largest telescope so far, which was 12 meters long. It was the first of the giant reflector telescopes. -
William Parson created largest reflecting telescope
Scottish astronomer William Parson, or Lord Rosse, built a telescope with a 6 foot diameter lense on his estate. It was commonly known as "the leviathan of Parsontown." With this telescope, Parson was rhe first to view and document a spiral nebulae. -
Grote Reber engineers the first radio telescope
An American astronomer and inventor created a telescope that could sense and put radio waves into images. This was and is used to sense naturally occuing radio waves coming off of planets that don't produce their own light, as well as black holes. -
NASA and ESA launch the first telescope into space
The fist space telescope, the Hubble telescope, continues to orbit the earth and send images back to this day. It was a massive accomplishment for the world. -
ESA launches the Herschel Space Observatory
The Herschal Space observatory was made to sense far-infrared or submillimeter portions of the light spectrum. It is continues to reveal new information about the oldest stars and most far reaches of the galaxy. -
The Gran Telescopio Canarias is built on La Palma island
The largest telesope of our time was built on an island in the Canary Islands. It is one of the most advanced optical and infrared red telescopes in the world, and has 75.5 square meters of effective sun-collecting area.
