People have always looked up and marvelled at the night skies, making patterns of stars and planets, and studying them in detail. But it was the invention of the telescope that allowed us to gaze at the skies in finer detail and reveal the secrets that lay in the dark. The telescope also paved the way to confirm the heliocentric model put forward by Nicolaus Copernicus.
The first telescopes were developed by the end of the 15th century and the first patent registered was in 1608 in the Netherlands by Hans Lippershey, a specs maker. However his former neighbour Zacharias Janssen and Jacob Metius from another town also filed for the same patent just weeks later.
Hence, the real invention of the telescope doesn’t resolve but it was Galileo who made one independently and pointed it at the skies. His telescope like the earlier ones used a convex lens, bulged in the centre at the front of the telescope as objective....
