Types of Telescope

Abstract

Until recently, the invention of the telescope was generally attributed to a Dutch spectacle maker called Hans Lippershey (or Lippersheim, 1570?-1619). He worked at Middleburg on the island of Walcheren, some 60 km north-west of Antwerp. The probably apocryphal story has it that in 1608 his children discovered, while playing with some of his spare lenses, that one combination made a distant church spire appear much closer. The exact combination of lenses they and he used is no longer known, but it is likely to have been a pair of converging lenses. An example of the resulting telescope was duly presented to the States-General, Prince Maurice. The news of the discovery spread rapidly, reaching Venice and Galileo only a year later.