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English Astronomy
Thomas Harriot (1560 – 1621) becomes the first person to make a drawing of the Moon through a telescope. -
Galileo experiments
The first telescope was unveiled in the Netherlands, made by Jacob Metius and Hans Lippershey. Galileo, constructed his own, was the first to use it to explore space. With his telescope he discovered four satellites of Jupiter. -
Newton reflects
Early telescopes consisted of glass lenses mounted in a tube. Isaac Newton discovered it caused differing refraction when coloured lights passed through it. To solve this, Newton designed a telescope which used mirrors, known as a reflector telescope. -
Persuading the King
Sir William Herschel, persuaded the king of England to finance the construction of a reflector with a 12-metre focal length and a 120-cm mirror. Herschel is credited with having used this instrument to lay the observational groundwork for the concept of extragalactic “nebulas”—i.e., galaxies outside the Milky Way system. -
Irish Inventions
William PArsons (the 3rd Earl of Rosse) built an enormous telescope with a mirror almost 2 metres in diameter. The telescope was placed in a pit near his home and consisted of a giant tube, at the bottom was a large metal mirror. Despite its restricted range, discoveries of the first spiral nebulae were made with this telescope. -
The Dawn of Hubble
In the 1970s work began on a telescope. Named after American astrologist Edwin Hubble, On 25 April 1990, the Hubble telescope was deployed to its position beyond the Earth's atmosphere where it orbits the planet. Its use has led to many discoveries, such as the age of the universe and the existence of dark energy. -
JWST
In 1996 plans began for the Hubble's successor. Named after former Nasa administrator, James Webb, the James Webb Space Telescope is a large infrared-optimised space telescope, which will reside in an orbit around 1.7 million Kilometres away from earth. It is to be launched in 2021
