This remarkable history encompasses not only the achievements of the early inventors and astronomers but also the less frequently recounted stories of the instr

Ours is an age of science and technology, based on precision instruments. The first such device to strengthen our feeble human senses in our striving to compreh

The origins of the telescope have been discussed and debated since shortly after the instrument's appearance in The Hague in 1608. Civic and national pride have

After the telescope became known in 1608-1609, a number of people in widely separate locations claimed that they had such a device long before the announcement

This book is uniquely about the relationship between the optical telescope and astronomy as they developed together. It covers the time between the telescope's