Well, any of us who has ever looked through a telescope could say the same, for the two principal types in use today were developed by giants: the refractor by Galileo and the reflector by Newton.

Instead, they offered him payment in exchange for developing a binocular form of his invention. Shortly after he began ...

Five years after the appearance of the great supernova of 1604, Galileo builds his first telescope. He sees the moons of Jupiter, Saturn's rings, the phases of Venus, and the stars in the Milky Way.

See how telescopes capture the cosmos. ExtremeTech explains the science behind lenses and space exploration. Start exploring ...