Telescopes

By pea

  • 1593

    A Spanish man, in his will, bequeaths his telescope to his widow. Don Pedro de Carolona in Barcelona Spain. This isn't telling us that he invented the telescope, just that he had one before the traditionally accepted 1608 date of its invention.

  • 1608

    Hans Lippershey applies for a patent for a refractor telescope

  • 1609

    Galileo Galilei makes a refractor telescope and turns it to the skies

  • 1663

    James Gregory designs the first reflector telescope but does not build one for several years because of difficulties in construction technique. This style of telescope is called "The Gregorian Reflector".

  • 1616

    Niccolo Zucchi constructs the first reflecting telescope

  • 1630

    Christoph Scheiner constructs a keplerian telescope based on Keplers design

  • 1650

    Christiaan Huygens improves on the design of the refractor telescope and build some large scopes

  • 1672

    Laurent Cassegrain improves on the Gregorian design by creating the Cassegrain telescope

  • 1668

    Sir Isaac Newton builds the first workable reflector telescope. This is the type of telescope with a mirror in it rather than a lens.

  • 1721

    John Hadley produces the first workable Gregorian telescope

  • 1733

    Chester Hall designs and builds the first achromatic lenses which dramatically improved the performance of refractor telescopes

  • 1789

    William Herschel builds the largest telescope of the 18th Century. It was a giant reflector with a mirror that was 49 inches wide.

  • 1895

    The largest refractor in history is completed at the Yerkes Observatory at the University of Chicago in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. The 40 inch lens was built by Alvan Clark.

  • 1908

    The 60 Inch Mount Wilson reflector is completed

  • 1910

    George Willis Ritchey and Henri Chretien co-invent the Ritchey-Chretien telescope which is a design used in many modern observatory telescopes.

  • 1917

    The 100 inch Hooker telescope is completed

  • 1924

    Edwin Hubble used the 100" Hooker telescope to find Cepheid variable stars in the andromeda galaxy. This allowed him to scientifically derive that it was outside the milky way galaxy. This was a significant event in that the size of the universe was proven to be much larger than only our milky way galaxy. The milky way became just one galaxy among many others.

  • 1944

    Dmitri Dmitrievich Maksutov invents the Maksutov telescope

  • 1948

    The 200 Inch Hale reflector at Mount Palomar observatory is completed

  • 1950

    The Dobsonian style telescope is credited as having been invented by John Dobson

  • 1965

    the 238 Inch Large Alatazimuth Telescope in Russia is completed

  • 1990

    The Hubble Telescope was launched into space. This telescope has brought us images and information that is unprecedented. It is a Ritchey Chretien design and has a primary mirror that is 2.4 meters wide

  • 1995

    The Hubble telescope takes the deep field image which is arguable the most profound astronomical image ever taken, along with the Hubble Ultra deep field (2003-2004) and Hubble Deep Field Sount (1998)

  • 2005

    The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) achieves first light. This telescope has the largest single piece of glass mirrors. Each mirror is 8.4 meters (330 inches) in width and when used together they create the equivalent of a mirror that is 11.8 meters (464 inches) across which is currently the largest light collecting size on Earth. It is located in Mount Graham International Observatory in Arizona

  • 2005

    The South African Large Telescope (SALT) achieves first light. It has a segmented primary mirror that is 10.4 meters in diameter (409 inches)