9a. Earth orbits Sun? 9b. The Planets P--1 Links and Tables P--8
Io and other P--13 Pluto & Kuiper Belt P--14 Comets and more 10.
Kepler's Laws The solar system extends far past the orbit of
Saturn, but for exploring those regions, the many planetary
satellites and the universe beyond--for all these (as well as
taking pictures, dissecting colors etc.), the human eye needed
the help of an optical instrument: the telescope The story of
the telescope and its technology is too big and too rich to be
told on this single web page. The most that can be presented
here is a short historical summary. For more, I recommend just
one book The telescope was invented in 1608 by Hans Lipperhey, a
Dutch lens-grinder. Glass manufacture improved over the
centuries, and by 1600 eyeglasses were widely used for
correcting vision --not just the convex kind (for far-sighted
eyes) but also, in later years, concave ones for near-sighted
vision. Lipperhey found that if he combined the two kinds and
adjusted the curvature and spacing, t