Telescope

Telescope


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Hans Lippershey – The Forgotten Inventor of the Telescope:

Hans Lippershey is credited with designing the first telescope in 1608. He was a spectacle maker born in Germany but migrated to Zeeland in Holland. In September 1608 he brought his designs for a telescope to Hague and applied for a patent. His design was for a telescope which magnified objects by three times. Within 3 weeks two other spectacle makers also unveiled their plans for telescopes. Lippershey was not granted a patent but he was rewarded by the Dutch Government for his designs and recognized as the inventor of the telescope.

It is commonly believed that Galileo Galilee invented the telescope but this is a myth. Galileo was a great mathematician and astronomer but he did not invent the telescope. He did refine Lippershey's design in 1609 and made two telescopes that magnified objects by eight and twenty times. This enabled him to observe the universe in much greater detail than was previously possible. One of his first discoveries was observing the moon's craters. It had previously been assumed that the moon was a smooth surface.

Hans Lippershey did not dream up the idea of the telescope alone. Ibn Alhazen a mathematician from Basra, Iraq published his Book of Optics around 1000AD. In it he discussed concave lenses which are what telescopes are made of. Although he didn't invent the telescope his work made it possible for others to invent the telescope. From the 13th century onwards many scholars wrote about the possibility of combining concave lenses to see greater distances but until Lippershey nobody actually did.

The invention of the telescope has made it possible to observe the universe on a much greater scale and with much more detail than relying on the naked eye alone. It is considered one of the most important inventions in the history of astronomy and heralded the beginning of a new era.

	Types :
	• Optical : a) Refracting (Dioptrics) b) Reflecting (Catoptrics) c) Catadioptric d) Infrared e) Submillimeter f) Ultraviolet • Radio • High energy particles • Others: a) Gravitational wave