How or why was the telescope invented?
ZooeyJello3 asked:
I want to know how they came about or why they wanted to invent the telescope. I need this information for History Day.
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I want to know how they came about or why they wanted to invent the telescope. I need this information for History Day.
January 21st, 2010 at 3:09 am
The earliest evidence of working telescopes were the refracting telescopes that appeared in the Netherlands in 1608. Their development is credited to three individuals: Hans Lippershey and Zacharias Janssen, who were spectacle makers in Middelburg, and Jacob Metius of Alkmaar.[4] Galileo greatly improved upon these designs the following year.
The idea that a mirror could be used as an objective instead of a lens was being investigated soon after the invention of the refracting telescope.[5] The potential advantages of using parabolic mirrors, primarily reduction of spherical aberration with no chromatic aberration, led to many proposed designs and several attempts to build reflecting telescopes.[6] In 1668, Isaac Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope that bears his name, the Newtonian reflector.
The invention of the achromatic lens in 1733 partially corrected color aberrations present in the simple lens and enabled the construction of shorter, more functional refracting telescopes. Reflecting telescopes, though not limited by the color problems seen in refractors, were hampered by the use of fast tarnishing speculum metal mirrors employed during the 18th and early 19th century—a problem alleviated by the introduction of silver coated glass mirrors in 1857,[7] and aluminized mirrors in 1932.[8] The maximum physical size limit for refracting telescopes is about 1 meter (40 inches), dictating that the vast majority of large optical researching telescopes built since the turn of the 20th century have been reflectors. The largest reflecting telescopes currently have objectives larger then 10 m (33 feet).
The 20th century also saw the development of telescopes that worked in a wide range of wavelengths from radio to gamma-rays. The first purpose built radio telescope went into operation in 1937. Since then, a tremendous variety of complex astronomical instruments have been developed. Blake
January 22nd, 2010 at 3:35 pm
To see distant objects colmbbeard22
January 23rd, 2010 at 8:06 pm
The telescope was probably invented by accident, as a result of playing around with spectacle lenses. Legend has it it was children fooling around in the workshop of Dutch spectacle-maker Hans Lippershey (or Lipperhey). He applied for a patent in 1608 but was denied due to competing claims. Once the quality of spectacle lenses became good enough, it was inevitable that people would stumble upon the principle of the telescope. The earliest uses for the telescope were military, to observe the enemy, and commercial, to identify ships at sea or approaching port. They were also used for astronomy from very early on. Galileo Galilei was the first to publish the results of such observations, in 1609.
James Gregory designed the first reflecting telescope in 1663, but its mirrors were too complicated to make with the technology of the time. The first practical reflecting telescope was built by Isaac Newton in 1668. Both of these men were more interested in theoretical optics than in the practical applications. injanier