alternatehistory.com

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?
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