Earliest possible telescope?

Mort the Reaper

While there are claims that it was invented earlier, the first record of a telescope comes from the Dutch Republic in 1608.

How early could the telescope have been invented?
 

Albrecht

Banned
I could bet on the Greek(Hellenistic) and the Roman Empires to an extent, if they survive longer and stronger(these empires in the Antiquity include the Mesopotamia and Egypt, too). Outside these, Ancient Persia and the Medieval Arab Golden Age empires are good candidates.

Edit: I would also like to add the Chinese Empire.
 

Analytical Engine

Firstly, it depends on what type of telescope you want.

A reflecting telescope requires high quality mirrors - regular bronze, for instance, absolutely won't cut it. A refracting telescope requires high quality glass to make lenses from.

For the latter, the first true spectacles were invented in Medieval Italy in the mid-13th century.

Whilst even Emperor Nero was claimed to use an emerald corrective lens to view gladiatorial games, primitive corrective lenses were used to aid in reading before then. This kind of technology is, however, not sufficient to make a proper telescope - you need precision grinding techniques for a clear image.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lens#History
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasses#History

As for mirrors, Newton decided on speculum metal - an alloy of 2/3 copper and 1/3 tin. Despite being difficult to make using the techniques of the time, it was the best material before the invention of glass silvering in the 19th century. Although it has been known about for a long time, it would be expensive to make telescopes using this material.
 

Kaze

Banned
Night Gaul said:
I thought Imperial Chinese science was held back by a lack of transparent glass in China. Was I wrong?
Click to expand...

Marco Polo reports that he saw common Chinese people wearing eyeglasses. It was the lack of transparent glass, it was the devastation that was the fall of the Song and Ming Dynasties that held back science.


Spence in his book on China (though riddled with errors) goes even further reporting the existence of sunglasses as late as the latter Ming Dynasty. Said sunglasses were used by magistrates during their trials as a way to say they were impartial - the use of sunglasses by magistrates was seen all the way up to the Qing.
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

Notice that 'sunglasses' presupposes glass that is NOT clear.

other thread said:
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.
Click to expand...
 
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