Stargazer: The Life and Times of the Telescope

  • Fred Watson
Da Capo Press: 2005. 342 pp. $24.95 0306814323 | ISBN: 0-306-81432-3

The telescope symbolizes the science of astronomy and had a pivotal role in the development of early modern science. Several excellent historical studies have already been written about it, notably André Danjon and André Couder's Lunettes et Télescopes in 1935, Henry King's The History of the Telescope in 1955, and Rolf Riekher's Fernrohre und ihre Meister in 1990.

Star performer: Galileo's telescope from the early seventeenth century. Credit: ISTITUTO E MUSEO DI STORIA DELLA SCIENZA, FLORENCE/ALINARI/BRIDGEMAN

As we approach the fourth centennial of the invention of the telescope, the Australian astronomer Fred Watson presents a well-written, up-to-date history of the invention and development of the telescope and its impact on astronomy. As the astronomer-in-charge at the Anglo-Australian Observatory at Coonabarabran in New South Wales, Watson is well equipped to write such a history. He tells the fascinating story of the invention of simple telescopes by Dutch spectacle-makers in the early years of the seventeenth century, and recounts their evolution into the modern telescopes of today.

The reliably documented history of the telescope begins in September 1608, when the Middelburg spectacle-maker Hans Lippershey submitted a request for a patent on his invention. But Watson also dwells on the (unlikely) possibility that primitive telescopes had been known to the ancient Mesopotamians, and to Hellenistic and medieval scholars in Europe.

A stronger case can be made for the so-called Elizabethan telescope, an early reflecting telescope described in the works of the Englishmen Thomas Digges and William Bourne, but the evidence suggests that it existed only in the minds of those who wrote on it, rather than in reality.

Although the inventors of the refracting telescope were Dutchmen, it fell to Galileo, Thomas Harriot and Simon Marius to use it to observe the Universe. Their observations soon provided proof for the Sun-centred copernican model of the heavens. Christiaan Huygens, Johannes Hevelius and William Herschel all made key discoveries using telescopes that they had designed and built themselves.

After the early successes, Watson goes on to describe the subsequent improvements of the refracting and reflecting telescopes, with considerable attention to detail. In the final chapters, he discusses the great Earth- and space-based telescopes of the twentieth century that revolutionized our understanding of the origin and fate of the cosmos, and he offers a peek into the near future at a new generation of super telescopes that will probe even further into space.

Throughout the text there are useful diagrams and illustrations that ably illustrate the various lens and mirror configurations that have been designed during the telescope's first 400 years. There are also detailed notes, a glossary of astronomical and optical terms, and a bibliography.

Inevitably, there are a few minor errors. For example, Ptolemy's Almagest, an astronomy manual, should be dated to the middle of the second century AD, not the first century AD.

Watson's book is a welcome addition to the literature on the history of the telescope, and can be recommended to any reader with an interest in the history of science and instrumental technology.