Historical Review of Telescopes

Telescopes made their mark in the history almost 400 years back in early 1600’s. It all began when Galileo, an Italian mathematician, invented a new mechanical instrument that helped him in realizing his dream of viewing different celestial objects in the sky at night.

At that time, Galileo knew that he has done something that will be remembered forever. When he invented his telescope, he knew that has certainly made a history.

But soon, his invention was revealed in front of the world and with the passage of time humanity came to know about their earth’s surroundings and neighbours.

Almost all of the telescopes of that time and today follow the same principle, invented by Galileo. According to the principle that was invented by Galileo, a telescope should have an arrangement of two lenses in order to gather more light. Human eye also acts as a lense but it can’t gather that much light.

The two lenses are used in telescopes that enable it to gather more light. According to the principle, the two lenses would gather the light and would focus the gathered light to build an image.

This image is formed due to refraction which is the reason that sometimes these telescopes are also called as the refractors or refracting telescopes. The term refracting, in the context of telescope, means the bending of the gathered light in order to form its image.

Telescopes, after their invention by Galileo, continued to evolve into much more powerful telescopes than ever. Earlier telescopes were called as refractors but soon another type of telescope was invented; the reflectors.

These reflectors and refractors continued growing into much more powerful and bigger telescopes. With the advancement in technology and the increasing desire to see as far as possible, there was a time back in history where these telescopes got an unbelievable size.

Today, there are many telescopes that would be bigger than the room you live in. These special telescopes are made to view far distant objects in the sky at night.

Today, we can divide the telescopes in two categories according to the use; commercial telescopes and professional or purposely built telescopes. Commercial telescopes are used by non-professional; might be as a hobby.

But professional telescopes are used for the purpose of research and are mainly used by government agencies or professional astronomers. One such example is the telescope named Hubbel. Hubbel are used by NASA and they are amazingly capable of seeing images of objects that are hundreds of light years away from us.

Since the invention of telescopes, astronomers have always tried to evolve it into much more powerful telescope with advanced features like cameras that could take picture of the image made by the telescopes. This was one of the most exciting added features in the history of telescopes.

Manufactures of telescopes finally decided to make some special models of telescopes that come with an attached camera.

This feature enabled them to capture really interesting and never before seen pictures of different galaxies. Our own galaxy; the Milky Way is worth seeing. If you want to see it, any powerful telescope today will serve the purpose.

Imagine, if Galileo hadn’t invented the telescope then today, we would not have been able to view outside the place we live in i.e., the Earth.

There is countless number of distant objects that today we can see through telescopes. It is very much obvious that we couldn’t see these objects with our naked eye.