Earlier Invention of the Telescope

Telescopes were first invented in the Netherlands in about 1608, and by the fall of 1609, Galileo was observing the skies with his own telescope.

So could the telescope have been invented earlier? Primitive lenses have been around since antiquity, and glasses were invented by the thirteenth century. In order to make a telescope like Galileo's, you need a concave lens and convex lens, but Kepler designed one that needed two convex lenses. Both types of lenses existed by the fifteenth century. The quality of any early telescope will not be very good, but even the ability to magnify 2 or 3 times would be very useful.

So when's the earliest the telescope could be invented? And why did it take until the early 1600s in OTL?

Assuming telescopes were invented earlier - say about 1408, what effects would they have on European society?
 
The quality of glass needed for glasses is a lot lower than that needed for telescopes with multiple lenses and greater magnifying power.

The glass industry (outside Murano) made some pretty big leaps in quality right around that time. If you look at period glass, almost all of it before ~1600 has a distinct green tint.

Now. Murano had sole control of some iron-free sand, and was thus able to produce very clear glass much earlier.

So... If telescopes we're invented earlier, they'd be ferociously expensive (as all Murano glass was, but more so), and highly limited in numbers.
 
The big problem they had was getting the bubbles out of glass. Non-optical glass is full of bubbles. Even if they appeared clear, under magnification it was like looking through a glass of champagne. The solution was to stir vigorously. This was a trade secret eventually given up by a man on his death bed.
 
IDK a lot about telescope design, but I wonder if you need excellent glass. What about using silver mirrors & a reflector design? WP says reflectors were proposed soon after refracting 'scopes were invented; what's the chance of that happing before, instead?
 
IDK a lot about telescope design, but I wonder if you need excellent glass. What about using silver mirrors & a reflector design? WP says reflectors were proposed soon after refracting 'scopes were invented; what's the chance of that happing before, instead?

Parabolic reflectors were known about for some time. According to Wikipedia, James Gregory proposed such a device in 1663, but couldn't find anyone skilled enough to make it. It was first made by Robert Hooke in 1673.

Isaac Newton created a telescope with a spherical reflector in 1668, since that was easier to make.

It mostly comes down to being able to make a suitable reflector. Newton used speculum metal (six parts copper to two parts tin), and shaped, ground and polished it himself. Maybe you could push things back a bit, but there's a limit to what you can accomplish with less advanced techniques.

However, speculum mirrors are prone to tarnishing, and need re-polishing quite often. True silver mirrors weren't invented until the 19th century - they were mostly backed with a tin-mercury amalgam previously, which isn't as good.
 
The glass industry (outside Murano) made some pretty big leaps in quality right around that time. If you look at period glass, almost all of it before ~1600 has a distinct green tint.

Now. Murano had sole control of some iron-free sand, and was thus able to produce very clear glass much earlier.

Sounds like Venetian Stars around Jupiter are about to be discovered.
 
Assuming telescopes were invented earlier - say about 1408, what effects would they have on European society?
Scholasticism would have to deal with it in a period that saw huge success for Platonism and Neoplatonism in most of Europe (And in particular in Italy.). I'm not sure about the effect on the Renaissance, but I'm pretty sure that Aristotle and Aquinas would be criticized more than IOTL.
 

Anderman

Donor
Wouldn´t a earlier telescope or the better the technology needed for it lead to an earlier microscope ? Which would lead to a lot of butterflies.
 
Parabolic reflectors were known about for some time. According to Wikipedia, James Gregory proposed such a device in 1663
Obviously, I should have read the whole page...:oops:

Edit:
Effects? It blows up the Classical Solar System model, & may lead to a heliocentric model. What that means for the Catholic Church is unclear, but it likely means the famous (& false) story of Galileo Galilei never happens. (He was actually in trouble for making the Pope look stupid, not promoting heliocentrism.:rolleyes: )

This does likely improve astronomical understanding, too. Does it lead to earlier discovery of Kepler's Laws? Does it lead to the prediction, & discovery, of Pluto? Does it lead to earlier cometary discoveries, like *Halley's? Does the changed history of discovery lead to *Trojan Points being called something else? To planets being named differently?

Does it provoke developments in multi-mirror telescopes? Or improvements in optics more generally, like camera lenses, or binoculars?

Does it increase the popularity of science writing, & SF?

I confess, I have no answers...:oops: It seems to me, tho, every one of those questions might just be answered "yes".:eek: Just how many of them actually would be, I won't guess.;)

Edit:
Looking at this thread, I had a thought: telescopes lead to economic advantage. If you know what ship is coming in first, you can get to the markets first & bid on incoming commerce before everybody else (or set up sales, or whatever). The edge need not be large, but over time, it could add up to a substantial amount.

Something of the same might be said (later) for news organizations; would this make long-distance transmission of information easier? At the least, it offers chances for "scooping" the competition (before telegraphs wipe out that edge).

The obvious use in sharpshooting depends too much on rifle tech...but it makes me wonder two things: would telescopes drive development of rifled long arms? And would they impact naval gunnery, given the ability to spot fall of shot farther out, & better, before OTL? (Not to the level of gun director, mind.) Further on that, if it does, does it provoke a move to more-uniform batteries?
 
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