Telescopes were invented in the early 17^th century.  Hans Lippershey is given the most credit even though he did not invent it.  Hans saw the potential in this device and sold it as a military tool.  The scientist Galileo Galilei turned these devices towards space and the stars.  He saw Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and he also saw the moon and its craters.  His telescope was very blurry and when Sir Isaac Newton came along, his interest in light brought him to a new discovery.  Sir Isaac Newton made a telescope with a mirror.  This telescope took in light and bounced it back to the focus point of the telescope. This telescope made it much clearer than the telescope that Galileo Galilei made. Isaac Newton did not invent the first reflecting telescope.  The reflecting telescope honor goes to James Gregory from Scotland.  He designed this in 1660.  Newton's reflecting telescope was very small but was much clearer than Galilee’s telescope. 

            [1]"The earliest telescopes, such as those used by Galileo, consisted of glass lenses mounted in a tube.” The problem with Galileo's telescope is that it refracted white light into its component colors.  Newton realized what was causing the blurriness and made the reflecting telescope. This telescope took in light and then bounced it of the mirror which reflected it back to the onlookers’ eye.

 
            During the golden era of refracting telescopes (like the one Galileo Galilee made) in the 19^th century, they found that they could use the telescope as astronomy’s most important tool.  John Dolland found that the trick was that you had to combine a concave lens with a convex lens with slightly lower density.  Dolland’s invention was patented, but the poor quality of the convex lens made its usefulness limited.

 
            The first observatories built in the U.S. were equipped with telescopes from Russia. [2]“William Herschel recognized that regardless of the type of telescope, the larger the lens or mirror, the better the image created.” Hershel wanted to explore the heavens more and wanted a bigger telescope.  He also needed a structure to house the instruments.  He hired forty men to pour a concrete foundation.  Then they built the telescope and the housing and therefore created the first observatory.  Edwin Hubble, who the Hubble space telescope is named after, used the largest telescope in the 1920s to discover the mystery of the Nebula.  The Nebula were the mystery of space in the time of Edwin Hubble.  He discovered that they were actually far off galaxies.