Still, even Galileo recognized the ground-based uses of telescopes. After building his first telescopes, Galileo demonstrated the new instrument to the Venetian Senate, including military leaders.

The first spectacles, designed to correct farsightedness ... "objective" lens—the convex lens at the far end of the telescope—Galileo ground a lens larger than he needed, for example.

Second, you soon want a bigger telescope. Galileo, who first trained a telescope on the night sky 400 years ago this fall, pioneered this two-step program. First, he marveled at what he could see.

3 min read The Hubble Space Telescope was designed to free astronomers of a limitation that has plagued them since the days of Galileo—Earth's atmosphere. Shifting air pockets in the atmosphere ...

Galileo made himself one of the world's first telescopes and discovered the moons of Jupiter. He supported Copernicus' theory that the Earth revolved around the Sun. This brought him in conflict ...

Thus was born the study of optics. In 1609, about a year after an unknown author made the very first attempt to patent a telescope, Galileo Galilei designed and built his famous instrument ...

Galileo Galilei, with a homemade telescope, noticed three points of light near Jupiter. Initially believing they were distant stars, Galileo’s repeated observations over several nights and realized ...