Astronomy and Telescopes

Invention of Telescope:

Great astronomer come philosopher Galileo Galilei is called ‘The Father of Modern Astronomy’. As per history, it is known that around the year 1608-9 Galileo first got the news of Netherlands’ scientist Hans Lippershey’s telescope. Galileo developed that telescope and made same type of instrument. The invented instrument could give almost thirty times closer picture of any object. He gave a name to it, ‘Refractor Telescope. This brought revolution in Optical Astronomy indeed. The instrument made by Galileo recognised the very first complete telescope in the world.  The maker of the telescope used it in many ways and invented some excellent inventions. He invented that the outer portion of the Moon is uneven.  He also saw that ‘Pleiades’ is the sum of more than forty stars. Added to that, he invented four satellites of the Jupiter and the ‘Sunspots’ (the dark spots on the Sun) in the sky.

Reflector Telescope:

In 1668, Sir Issec Newton made a new instrument and gave a name to it, ‘Reflector Telescope’. ‘Refractor Telescope’ designed to do light reflection by big optical lenses.  Other side ‘Reflector Telescope’ has contained a big curve mirror. Modern day two type of telescope are used in circumstances. Later a new instrument had invented, known as ‘Optical Telescope’. This telescope has more advantage than the past one.

Radio Astronomy:

There is a new type of Astronomy which stared in peculiar fashion. It was in 1931,  a Radio engineer Mr. Karl Jansky was working in Bell Telephone Laboratory, in U.S.A. Suddenly, he had observed an incident - there were a continues radiation from the sky. Amusingly, many great astronomers of that age never gave enough attention to this fact. Mr. Grote Reber, an unprofessional radio operator was the first who shown curiosity to this incident. He himself took initiative and started experiments on this issue. After six years of research his relentless try come to conclusion. He gave description and observation of radiation from the sky. In 1937, he had invented the first Radio Telescope. The telescope was near about 9.58 meter or 31 feet and 5 inch parabolic dish. He set up this instrument at the backside lawn of his home. In the year of 1940, he invented the first Universal Radio Map. That period a new branch included to Astronomy, the ‘Radio Astronomy’.

The Radio Astronomy resembles with the Optical Astronomy in many ways. In Radio Telescope, there is metal reflector and an antenna. This metal reflector store wireless radiation and centralised in the antenna. The antenna can be specified at any frequency.  A sensitive radio capturing instrument or radio receiver captures radiation from the antenna and records it.

Today’s  Satellite Technology:

From the early sixty’s of twentieth century onwards, the satellite based technology and its workmen took remarkable role to reveal the truth of the Astronomy. Before the satellite technology, all the research started from the soil of earth. Now thanks to the development of technology, human beings can do their research beyond the earth’s atmosphere.  Now observation on other stars and planets can be done more easily. So, now research on Astronomy is being processed in two ways- one is from the earth and other from the satellite that stay in the sky.