Telescope
A telescope is an optical instrument used to make distant objects closer, brighter, and more detailed.[1]
The amount of light seen through an individual's unaided mark one eyeball is determined by the diameter of their iris, the muscular body at the front center of the eyeball. A telescope has a wider light-gathering area, and so can make an object brighter.
Galileo was the first individual to use a telescope to observe the night sky.[1][2] He used a telescope he built, himself, using lenses he ground himself and revolutionized Astronomy. He could see features on the moon that dould not be seen with the naked eye. He was able to record that Planet Venus went through phases similar to Luna, our moon. He was the first observer to discover that Planet Jupiter was also orbited by moons of its own.
Galileo's telescope was a refracting telescopes.[1] Modern visible light telescopes, used in Astronomy, are all reflecting telescopes, as large telescopes have heavy lenses, and the weight of transparent lenses is only supported at their edge, and this lets the heaviest inner segment sag -- distorting the image.
Modern Astronomers have developed telescopes that all them to measure infrared waves, ultraviolet waves, radio waves, x-rays, neutrino flux, and even gravity waves.[2]
References
[edit | edit source]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Did Galileo invent the telescope?". NASA. Retrieved 2026-07-07.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1
David Jewitt (March 2010). "What is out there?" (PDF). Sky and telescope magazine. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2022-10-07. Retrieved 2026-07-07.
EFORE GALILEO pointed his telescope skyward some 400 years ago, the solar system was a decidedly simple place. Apart from the Moon, the Sun, and the planets out to Saturn, only the occasional comet was seen by the unaided human eye.