TheTelescope

Nearly every one interested in the sciences know about the telescope, and its perceived uses and different capacities. But when did the idea of a device that would magnify distant objects and phenomena first appear? With the ideas, we would have to give credit to Roger Bacon, an English scientist and philosopher, who first laid out the basic principles of the functions of light and magnification in the thirteenth century. But who made the very first telescope? History says that it wasn’t technically an astronomer or scientist who was able to craft the first telescope. Hans Lippershey was a Dutch lens maker who first observed that things that are refracted on two mirrors that are held at a particular distance from each other produce a magnified image of that object. With this in mind, the Dutch lens maker mounted two lenses on a tube, and was able to construct the first crude refracting-type telescope for the whole world. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Were telescopes always used to study the heavens? Not necessarily. The first telescopes were primarily used in militaristic activities: one can imagine how strategic and efficient the telescope was in telling generals and captains if there was danger coming in from afar. Because of the use of the telescope, from its humble beginnings inside the workshop of the Dutch lens maker Hans Lippershey, the news of a new kind of observing tool spread like wildfire through out most of Western Europe.

The first historical record of the telescopic device being used for specifically scientific purposes was in the sixteenth century, and we owe this to Galileo, an Italian scientist, who along with the equally famous Johannes Kepler, made important observations of the movements of planets, and the true position of the Earth in the Solar System. The work of the Italian Galileo and the German Keplar were utilized to their fullest potential extent by the English scientist Newton, who up to now is being used in modern physics as a solid foundation for astronomy and physics.

In the seventeenth century, the humble Dutch-made telescope was given a new look. It was in this century that the technology of crafting telescopes flew in leaps and bounds. In the year 1663, a Scottish scientist and astronomer by the name of James Gregory constructed the very first reflecting-type telescope. What was the first windfall in Gregory’s generation? His telescope, instead of utilizing the image-producing capabilities of bending light, utilized the image-magnifying capabilities of reflecting light. Gregory’s design was put to its fullest rights by Newton, who wasted no time in making one and testing it in his empirical experiments. The early models of the reflecting telescope were generally made up of a mixture of copper and tin (you can imagine this combination in relation to the collection and reflection of light).

Today, modern methods has allowed for the construction of literal giant telescopes. These giant telescopes were used by universities in their independent studies.