††††A telescope is an optical instrument with lenses or mirrors, that magnify distant objects.
No one knows for certain who invented the refracting telescope - a telescope using lenses rather than mirrors. It is said that in 1608, Hans Lippershey, a Dutch spectacle maker, put two lenses together and looked through them. He noticed that a distant rooftop appeared enlarged.
In 1634, Hans Janssen, another Dutch spectacle maker, described how he had copied an Italian telescope dating from 1590. Whoever invented the telescope, Galileo was the first person to study the skies with one in 1609.
