Despite myriad embellishments, however, most optical telescopes in use in the 21st century derive from the two types developed in the 17th century by Galileo and Newton, on whose shoulders all ...

[Christiaan Huygens] was a pretty decent mathematician and scientist by the standards of the 17th century. However, the telescopes he built were considered to be relatively poor in quality for the ...

When Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei heard rumors of the first practical telescope at the beginning of the 17th century, he was quick to craft his own version and turn it toward the heavens.