Aristophanes uses a glass sphere filled with water to start fires
1400
convex lenses to correct farsightedness are developed.
1500
concave lenses to correct nearsightedness are developed.
Hans Lippershey discovers that holding two lenses up some distance apart bring objects closer
Thomas Harriot becomes the first person to make a drawing of the Moon through a telescope
Galileo builds several telescopes to map the sky
The term "telescope" is coined by Prince Frederick Sesi
Johannes Kepler switches from a concave eyepiece to a convex eyepiece
Marin Mersenne using two paraboloidal mirrors instead of lenses
Rene Descartes demonstrated that speherical lenses cannot produce pinpoints of light
Robert Hooke invents an idea to reduce length of telescopes
Newton produces the first working reflective telescope
Johannus Hevelius realized that the longer the telescope was, the closer together the different colored points of light would be at the focal point
Christian Huygens suggests getting rid of the supporting structure and mounting the objective lens on the top of a long pole.
Chester Moor Hall develops an achromatic lens
Sir William Herschel constructs a forty foot long telescope with a four-foot diameter mirror.
H. Dennis Taylor, optical manager of T. Cooke & Sons of York, makers of astronomical telescopes, designed and patented the revolutionary, and now famous, triplet design