All these years I've been teaching people wrong! On 26 July 1609 the English polymath Thomas Harriot became the first person to look at a celestial object through a telescope. Harriot pointed his simple ‘Dutch trunke’ telescope at the Moon on 26th July 1609, making simple drawings of our nearest astronomical neighbour from his house in Syon Park in what is now West London. He made his pioneering drawings several months before Galileo
Monday 17 October 2011
It wasn't Galileo, it was Thomas Harriott
All these years I've been teaching people wrong! On 26 July 1609 the English polymath Thomas Harriot became the first person to look at a celestial object through a telescope. Harriot pointed his simple ‘Dutch trunke’ telescope at the Moon on 26th July 1609, making simple drawings of our nearest astronomical neighbour from his house in Syon Park in what is now West London. He made his pioneering drawings several months before Galileo
