The History of Telescopes

Overview

Celebrating its 406th birthday this year is the invention of the working telescope. Hans Lippershey, the German spectacle-maker is most often credited with the basic design of refracting telescopes, with a convex objective lens and a concave eyepiece. From that basic construction, talented minds including Galileo and Isaac Newton began to use and advance upon the first innovation in order to progress the technology behind telescopes to where they are today.

If you get a kick out of telescope facts and how the little magnifying spyglass guys came about, then you might be interested in a tutorial session at the Stardome. A talk dedicated to telescopes, and not only their technological development, but also how they have contributed and evolved a little closer to home, in Auckland city. Learn about how the late Edith Winstone Blackwell, Auckland-born and bred philanthropist, lent a helping hand to the Stardome Observatory by donating what remains to be the organisation’s largest scope, the Zeiss telescope. The Zeiss offers an intensely magnified view of some of the most incredible deep space objects that could never be examined with the human eye.

Stargazers and aspiring astronomers alike can head along to the Observatory to experience the Stardome at its finest and learn all about the telescope at no cost, but book to make sure you get a place.