It seems as if man has always looked to the skies, and not just for answers to its own inherent mystery, either.  We told stories about the pictures we seemed to see in the stars.  We believed that close study of the positions of the celestial bodies could predict future events.  The night sky showed the homes and areas of influence of a whole flock of deities.  The more we could see, the more intriguing became the sight.

On October 2, 1608, application was made for a patent for a device which allowed “for seeing things far away as if they were nearby“.  Before that there was a rich history of men using lenses, mirrors, even rock crystals to see things far away as if they were nearby.  Aristophanes mentions the use of a “burning glass” (convex glass – a magnifying lens) in his 424 BCE play “The Clouds”.

Emblemata of zinne-werck, Johan de Brune 1624

Telescopes advanced through the centuries (the original had about a 3X magnification), first by stacking lenses together to create more powerful magnification, or variations of the same general idea (as with aerial telescopes).  There were reflecting telescopes (using parabolic mirrors), achromatic refracting telescopes (using different types of lenses to form a refracting telescope with a twist), giant reflecting telescopes like the Leviathan of Parsonstown, and adaptive optics, like those used on the Gemini telescopes.  You remember us talking about adaptive optics, right?  That’s where your telescope is, essentially, wearing glasses.

Woodcut 140 ft Johann Hevelius telescope, ca 1673

The twentieth century, beginning about 1931, ushered in radio astronomy and radio telescopes.  Arecibo and the Very Large Array are radio telescopes.  In addition to radio astronomy, we’ve had advancements with the light spectrum telescopes; the infrared, far infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma ray telescopes.  Out of advances in these modern telescopes comes the hulking astronomical interferometer, in which an array of telescopes thousands of kilometers distant takes the shape of a single parabolic lens.  The Fast Fourier Transform telescope is an interferometer.

In a class by themselves are the space telescopes like the Hubble and the soon-to-be-launched James Webb telescope.  Space telescopes (or observatories) have the advantage of not having to work around and with the distortions caused by Earth’s atmosphere.  In addition, space based astronomy has a much wider range of frequencies with which to work.  X-ray astronomy is nearly impossible from the Earth, while infrared and ultraviolet are significantly limited.

NASA STS-82, Hubble Space Telescope

We’ve come a long way from being gobsmacked by a 3X magnification.  As advances in telescope design and technique continue exponentially, there is no telling what (or who) we’ll see in the telescopes of the future.  Imagine if Galileo and Newton could have had access to modern telescopes.

Imagine what the Newtons of tomorrow will discover.