So, how was the telescope invented? Let's go back to history and look for the footprints left by astronomical telescopes in the development process.
Early telescopes were toys.
/kloc-At the beginning of the 0/7th century, in the small town of middelburg in the Netherlands, the optician Lipper was busy grinding lenses for customers almost all day. In his shop, all kinds of lenses are dazzling for customers to choose when matching glasses. Of course, there are many discarded waste lenses, and the waste lenses piled in the corner have become the toys of Lippert's three sons.
One day, three children were playing on the balcony, and their younger brother leaned against the railing, holding a lens in each hand and looking at the scenery in front of him. Suddenly, he found that the wind vane on the church spire in the distance became big and close, and he cried with ecstasy. The two younger brothers scrambled to take the lens from their younger brothers and looked at the tiles, doors, windows and birds in the room ... they were all very clear, as if they were in front of them. Lippert was amazed at the children's stories. He did the experiment with a grain of salt as his son said, holding a concave lens in front of his eyes and a convex lens in front, and moving the distance gently with the lens. When he aimed the two lenses at the distant scene, Lipper was surprised to find that the distant scene was magnified and seemed within reach.
This interesting phenomenon was known by neighbors, and it was quite surprising after reading it. As soon as the news spread, the citizens of middelburg came to the shops and asked for a feast for their eyes. Many people are willing to pay the price of a pair of glasses to buy lenses that can bring the scene closer. After buying them, they treat them as "adult toys" and enjoy them alone. As a result, discarded lenses have become "treasures". Inspired by this, Lipper, who has the mind of market economy, realized that this was a profitable business, so he applied to the Dutch parliament for an invention patent.
160810 June 12, the National Assembly considered Lipper's patent application and gave a reply. The accepting official pointed to the sample and asked the inventor to improve it: it can be seen with two eyes at the same time; "Toy" is a big category, and the toy applying for patent should have a specific name. Lipper does it quickly. Then he put a lens on a sleeve and connected the two sleeves to meet the requirements of people's eyes. After careful consideration, he named the toy "Peeping Mirror". On February 5, 65438, the patent for the improvement of the binocular "peeping mirror" was approved by the government, and Congress gave him a bonus to show his encouragement.
Galileo telescope came out.
1609 In June, Galileo, an Italian astronomer and physicist, received a letter from a friend in Venice, telling him that a Dutch optician had made a "peeping mirror" that could be used to see the distant scenery clearly.
Galileo realized its application value in astronomy after obtaining the information, and immediately returned to Padua to concentrate on studying optics and lenses. He pondered it over and over again, and personally put the lens on both ends of the copper tube and fixed it on the fixing frame. At first, the telescope can only be magnified three times. On this basis, Galileo continued to explore and improve the telescope, magnifying it by 32 times, and the first astronomical telescope came out.
From the end of 1609 to the beginning of 16 10, Galileo used this epoch-making astronomical instrument to observe celestial bodies in Florence: he found that the surface of the moon was covered with craters and craters; It is found that Jupiter has four satellites, just like the moon goes around the earth; See that the Milky Way is made up of countless stars; Sunspots, Venus and Saturn's rings have also been observed. In order to make the astronomical observations public, Galileo published the book Star Messenger in Venice on March 16 10, which revealed a series of important astronomical viewpoints and caused a sensation in Europe.
Soon, the German astronomer Kepler also made a new telescope. The objective lens and eyepiece of this telescope are composed of convex lenses. The front convex lens is used as an objective lens to collect light, and the rear convex lens is used as an eyepiece to enlarge the scene again. So the scenery observed by this astronomical telescope is upside down. The telescope he invented is called Kepler Telescope.
Kepler used a new telescope to observe the sky, expanding the 777 stars observed by his tutor, Danish astronomer Tycho, to 1005, and compiled and published the Rudolph Catalogue in 1627, which was regarded as a standard catalogue because of its high accuracy. When sorting out Tycho's astronomical observation data for 30 years, three laws of planetary motion were discovered, and later generations praised Kepler as "the legislator of the universe".
The astronomical telescope opened the door to the universe, Galileo discovered a new universe, and Kepler formulated laws for the starry sky.
Newton and reflecting telescope.
Galileo's astronomical telescope, like the telescope invented by Lipper in the Netherlands, is composed of concave lenses and convex lenses, including Kepler telescope, which is called "refractive telescope". Due to the chromatic dispersion of the lens, the scenery seen by the "refractive telescope" has colored edges. How to eliminate the "chromatic aberration" of lenses? British scientist Newton tried to solve this problem.
Newton made a scientific experiment with a prism, and observed that glass can decompose white light into seven colors, that is to say, a lens can focus different colors of light on different points, thus producing a blurred color image. After studying the refraction of light, Newton put forward the idea of "reflection phenomenon" to design a telescope. He believes that light itself is a complex mixture, with different refractive indices and regularity. Once the reflection angle of light is equal to their incident angle, if the reflection phenomenon is used as the medium, as long as the reflective material can be found, the defect of "color difference" can be avoided.
1668, Newton turned this idea into reality and made the world's first reflective telescope. The diameter of the lens barrel of this light telescope is about 25mm, and the total length is about 150mm. Soon, Newton improved the telescope and made a second reflecting telescope at 167 1. This precious telescope, which shines with human wisdom, is still well preserved and is permanently collected by the Royal Society Library.
The telescope developed by Newton replaced the objective lens with a reflector, which eliminated the chromatic aberration and promoted the development of the telescope.
The great contribution of pianist herschel.
/kloc-in the autumn of 0/757, the French army occupied Germany. William? Herschel and his sister left their homeland, wandered to England, and lived a hard life by busking in the streets and bars. However, there is joy in suffering. The brother and sister are interested in astronomical observation. In order to observe the starry sky, they decided to develop their own large-caliber reflecting telescope.
The objective lens of the telescope is a mirror made of bronze. In order to improve the light extraction and resolution of the telescope, they polished this bronze into a high-precision parabolic mirror by hand. The eyepiece is a lens made of glass. After several years of hard work, brother and sister finally made two largest astronomical telescopes in the world at that time, one of which had a diameter of 1.2m and a focal length of 12m.
178 1 On a sunny night in spring, my brother and sister came to the telescope to observe the sky. When the lens barrel was aimed at Gemini, an unusual six-star came into their sight and caught Herschel's attention. Herschel, who is very familiar with the starry sky, immediately judged that it was an unknown nova. After half a month's tracking, he finally determined that this is a new planet in the solar system-Uranus, and the time is March 13. Reward William? Herschel discovered Uranus, and King George III made him a royal astronomer.
In the development of astronomical telescope, Herschel's contribution is to create a parabolic mirror. According to its principle, it laid a foundation for the manufacture of catadioptric astronomical telescope, which was widely used later. At the same time, Herschel pioneered the manufacture of large-caliber reflecting telescope. Since then, in order to observe more stars, scientists have made reflecting telescope with larger diameter. 1845, the British astronomer Ross built a reflective telescope with a diameter of 1.84 meters.
History is always moving forward. 19 13, the diameter of the reflecting telescope equipped with Wilson Observatory in the United States increased to 2.54 meters. Due to the increase of telescope aperture, people's observation and research on the universe have gradually deepened. 1948, the United States made a reflective telescope with a diameter of 5.08 meters, and its silver-plated parabolic glass mirror weighed 14.5 tons. This telescope is located at Paloma Mountain Observatory. 1975, the Soviet union made a reflective telescope with a diameter of 6 meters. This giant telescope weighs 800 tons only in the rotating part, and it is the largest reflective telescope in the world at present.
Modern telescopes are accompanied by the development of science.
1930, German optician Schmidt invented the catadioptric telescope. This telescope is equipped with a strangely designed correction lens, with a flat front and a curved back, with a convex center and concave sides. It can eliminate several main aberrations, thus obtaining a relatively large aperture and a large field of view, which can be used to shoot a wide sky area.
The development of modern telescopes continues. American engineer Leibo is a radio enthusiast. 1937, he installed a parabolic reflector with a diameter of 9.45 meters in the backyard of his apartment in the suburbs of Chicago to replace the lens. At the beginning of 1938, Rabe began to use it to observe and receive radio waves from the sun and other celestial bodies, and the world's first radio telescope was successfully developed.
After World War II, with the progress of science and technology, radio telescopes have greatly expanded people's horizons. Giant bowl antennas can collect weak radio waves from the depths of the universe. When the radio wave is transmitted from the antenna to the receiver, the receiver screen will amplify the waveform and automatically record it for astronomers to study and analyze, thus uncovering one mystery after another. In 1960s, astronomers discovered interstellar organic molecules, quasars, pulsars and microwave background radiation, all of which were created by radio telescopes.
In order to uncover the mysteries of the deep universe, the telescope has made great achievements. The United States planned the development of "Space Telescope" in 1962. 1On April 25th, 990, the space shuttle Discovery put a space optical telescope named Hubble into space orbit. This space telescope consists of optical telescope, scientific instrument cabin and support system. Its shape is cylindrical, with a length of13.3m, a diameter of 4.3m and a total weight of12.5t. Advanced space technology can ensure that the Hubble Space Telescope can fly in space for 15 years.
The space telescope avoids the interference of the atmosphere on astronomical observation, and can see the deep space 7 times weaker than the ground telescope, the stars 50 times weaker and the extended space 350 times. Its sensitivity and resolution are 10 times stronger than those of ground-based telescopes, which can help astronomers discover celestial phenomena that cannot be observed on the ground and search for any clues that appear in the universe.
With the rapid development of modern science and technology, the legend of "clairvoyance" in ancient China is no longer a wonderful fantasy, and modern astronomical telescopes have turned the myth into reality.