THE FIRST TELESCOPES

Topics for NCHALADA Discussion
John Dillon, 2/5/05


Suggested Order of Discussion:

Pre-Galileo
	First lenses
	Giambattista della Porta - 2 lens "magic"
	The Dutch question: Lippershey, or Janssen, or?

Galileo
	modifications to the Dutch instruments
	involvement with the Society of the Lynx
	microscope/telescope variations

Post Galileo
	Kepler and other telescope designs
	Jesuit astronomers
	Further modifications


References:

Freedberg, David, The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo, His Friends, and the Beginnings of 
Natural History, U. of Chicago Press, 2002
	[chapter 4]

King, Henry C., The History of the Telescope, 1955, Dover reprint 2003
	[Chapters 1-3]

Pepin, M. Barlow, The Emergence of the Telescope: Janssen, Lipperhey, and the Unknown Man, available from the author via his website:
	http://pages.sbcglobal.net/ttauri/page5.html
	[Reviewed by Scott Mandelbrote in The British Journal for the History of Science, vol. 37, part 3, no. 134, p147-48.]

And if you can find it:
Giambattista della Porta, Natural Magic. Basic Books, 1957.  A facsimile edition of the 
1658 English edition, itself a translation of the original 1558 Neopolitan edition.


A good starting point on the web: http://cnx.rice.edu/content/m11932/latest/