Timeline of Telescopes

We know about the invention of the telescope; 1609 and with the help of this date we can easily make a clear timeline of the telescopes. Fortunately, much record had been kept as telescopes kept on evolving after their invention in 1609. The timeline of the telescopes is as follows:

1609: The Invention of Telescope

Most of us know that the telescope was invented in 1609 by an Italian mathematician known as Galileo. Galileo was the first person who invented telescope.

And after then the telescopes evolved into much bigger and powerful versions of its ancestors. Today, almost all of the telescopes are based on the same principle that was invented by Galileo.

That is the reason Galileo is often regarded as the Father of Telescopes. It is interesting to know that Galileo was indeed the first person to look in the sky to see those objects that are not finely visible or clear with a naked human eye.

The telescope made by Galileo was also called as reflecting telescope and it used two lenses to capture and bend the light coming from different distant objects.

Mid 1600s: Introduction of Refracting Telescopes

After the invention of the telescope in 1609 there were a number of researches going on to make the telescope bigger and better. In the mid 1600s, Johannes Kepler introduced an idea of refracting telescopes.

Those refracting telescopes would broaden the FOV (field of view) and ultimately they would improve the image quality. He simply did it by changing the placement of the lenses and also the shape of the lenses.

For the information of the readers, telescope lenses are usually of two types; concave and convex. There was one issue with those refracting telescopes; they used to made images with some colored circles around brighter objects. This is called as the chromatic aberration.

Late 1600s: The Bigger, the Better

After so much development since the invention of telescopes, astronomers started realizing that they can improve the quality of the image and the power of the telescope by increasing the size of the lens. The more the size of the lens, the more far objects you would see.

Based on this fact, astronomers started thinking about making telescopes with bigger lenses.

But with the increase in the size of the lens, the increase in the size of the telescope was obvious. So in the late 1600s, such telescopes were being manufactured that had bigger lenses and that we as long as 100 ft.

Solution of Chromatic Aberration:

As mentioned earlier, the problem of chromatic Aberration was there in the refracting telescopes. This was resolved by Sir Isaac Newton when he proposed the idea of changing the lens of the telescope.

He also introduced a way to improve the quality of the image without making the telescope much larger. The idea was to add some mirrors that could improve the quality of the image.

Telescopes that were made with this idea were also called as Newton’s Telescopes. Newton’s Telescopes were relatively small telescopes but they almost had the same power as that of a larger telescope.

Mid 1800s: Introduction of Photographic Telescope:

Introduced by John William Draper, photographic telescopes gained enormous popularity amongst all astrologers.

John William Draper was successful in designing a telescope that would produce the Moon’s image on a light-sensitive plate (photographic plate).

At that time, the exposure time was usually more than 10 minutes. Finally after an exposure time of 20 minutes, he was able to take what is regarded as the first photograph of moon ever taken. This was one of the greatest accomplishments in the telescope timeline.

There have been so many advancements in the timeline of telescopes. Most of the developments occurred before 1800 when technology was not at its peak as it is today. Today, with the advancements in telescopes, we can even see planets like Saturn and its beautiful ring.

Even we can see today the farthest planet in our solar system; Pluto. This timeline of telescopes will surely continue and will always continue with the ever increasing desire of human to see what has never been seen before.