Optical telescope
The telescope is more a discovery of optical craftsmen than an invention of a scientist. The lens and the properties of refracting and reflecting light had been known since antiquity and theory on how they worked were developed by ancient Greek philosophers, preserved and expanded on in the medieval Islamic world, and had reached a significantly advanced state by the time of the telescope's invention in early modern Europe. But the most significant step cited in the invention of the telescope was the development of lens manufacture for spectacles, first in Venice and Florence in the thirteenth century, and later in the spectacle making centers in both the Netherlands and Germany. It is in the Netherlands in 1608 where the first recorded optical telescopes (refracting telescopes) appeared. The invention is credited to the spectacle makers Hans Lippershey and Zacharias Janssen in Middelburg, and the instrument-maker and optician Jacob Metius of Alkmaar.
Clock drive
Different types of equatorial clock-driven telescopes were built or proposed in the 17th and 18th century including English astronomer Robert Hooke's 1674 paper proposing their use in precision measurement, a clock-driven aerial telescope objective lens constructed in 1685 by Italian-French astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini fitted with setting circles, and one supposedly built by English clockmaker and inventor George Graham early 18th century.
What is considered the first practical clock-driven telescope was constructed in 1824, Joseph von Fraunhofer's ‘Great Dorpat’ refractor, a telescope that combined other innovations, such as an achromatic lens and Fraunhofer's "German equatorial mount", making it the prototype of all future large refracting telescopes. Early telescope clock drives used a clock work with falling weights and pendulums, almost like grandfather clocks. Over time the falling weights and pendulums were replaced by an electric motor.