Beginning
Based only on uncertain descriptions of the first practical telescope, invented by Hans Lippershey in the Netherlands in 1608, Galileo, in the following year, made a telescope with about 3x magnification. He later made improved versions with up to about 30x magnification. With a Galilean telescope the observer could see magnified, upright images on the earth—it was what is commonly known as a terrestrial telescope or a spyglass. He could also use it to observe the sky; for a time he was one of those who could construct telescopes good enough for that purpose. On 25 August 1609, he demonstrated one of his early telescopes, with a magnification of about 8 or 9, to Venetian lawmakers. His telescopes were also a profitable sideline for Galileo selling them to merchants who found them useful both at sea and as items of trade. He published his initial telescopic astronomical observations in March 1610 in a brief treatise entitled Sidereus Nuncius (Starry Messenger).
Read more about this topic: Visible-light Astronomy
Famous quotes containing the word beginning:
“The gay world that flourished in the half-century between 1890 and the beginning of the Second World War, a highly visible, remarkably complex, and continually changing gay male world, took shape in New York City.... It is not supposed to have existed.”
—George Chauncey, U.S. educator, author. Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, p. 1, Basic Books (1994)
“As soon as you begin to say “We have always done things this way—perhaps that might be a better way,” conscious law-making is beginning. As soon as you begin to say “We do things this way—they do things that way—what is to be done about it?” men are beginning to feel towards justice, that resides between the endless jar of right and wrong.”
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“But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!””
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 14:30.
Peter.