The first use of a telescope to observe a celestial object is now credited to the Englishman Thomas Harriot who lived at Syon Park, west London, and pointed his “Dutch trunke” at the moon and drew a map of the moon’s surface on 26 July 1609. Since the early Dutch telescope had a very narrow angle of vision, drawing such maps was a painstaking business which required working on one small section at a time. Harriott’s map was not generally known until modern times as it was not published, Harriott being supported by the patronage of the wealthy Percy family and therefore under no need to publish his achievements. Generally credit for the first celestial observations with a telescope is given to Galileo Galilei who began to …

201 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "First use of telescope to observe the heavens". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 July 2009 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=454, accessed 23 November 2024.]