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Early Telescope
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Early Telescope
don of tallahassee > 29-01-2016, 02:26 AM
I offer the attached early image of a telescope. Notice the date.
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee -
RE: Early Telescope
david > 29-01-2016, 07:57 AM
There is someone who is about to discover why you don't look directly at the sun througha telescope!
Galileo didn't invent the telescope. He invented better lenses for it, and our together the first refracting telescope.
But they had been around for centuries. They were just crap.
As an aside, look up the 17th century air telescopes. They were great
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RE: Early Telescope
don of tallahassee > 30-01-2016, 10:38 PM
I was thinking the star object might be a nova/super nova. I can't read the text on the page. I think it would be interesting to read a translation to find out if the telescope is a telescope and from that early date, also. Might it be a heliosope, likewise not thought to have been invented until around 1600?
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee -
RE: Early Telescope
ReneZ > 31-01-2016, 08:00 AM
The image is of a sighting tube. There are still older illustrations of such a device. Sighting tubes did not have lenses. -
RE: Early Telescope
david > 31-01-2016, 08:33 AM
I would have thought that a dioptra of that size would have a protractor attached, but that doesn't seem to be depicted.
Can't really read the title on this phone, but it seems to say something like
as is said in the book of astronomy in the Celt language....
Anyone know what the second line reads -
RE: Early Telescope
don of tallahassee > 31-01-2016, 03:53 PM
Could you tell me, please, did you derive your identification of the image as a sighting tube from the words on the manuscript page or from another source?
I also think a sighting tube would have some sort of protractor or armillary sphere attached or shown nearby. But sighting tube does make for a much more easily understood and logical ID for the image at such an early date.
Alas, I can barely read and understand English, much less any other language.
Thank you.
Don of Tallahassee -
RE: Early Telescope
ReneZ > 31-01-2016, 06:13 PM
There's an article about it, retrievable on-line, in German:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
In the right margin there's a button for the PDF copy of the whole article.
Even if you can't read it, it's worth looking at its several illustrations
This discusses three versions of this illustration:
One in MS St.Gallen 18, p.45, from approx. the year 1000,
one in MS. Vat.Lat. 644 (10th Century), and one in Venetian MS Marc.Lat.VIII from the
12th-13th Century. That is the one you were showing here.
Another illustration is from a MS lost in 1944.
As the article describes, the tubes were used to look at stars. First they were oriented to the celestial
pole. After that, they would compare the positions of stars circling around the pole with a chart with
24 radii, and be able to tell the time during the night. -
RE: Early Telescope
davidjackson > 31-01-2016, 09:24 PM
Fascinating. I didn't realise you could tell the time with them (obvious once you've been told you can!)
Does it explain what the celtish astronomy bit is all about? Or am I misreading it? -
RE: Early Telescope
don of tallahassee > 01-02-2016, 03:19 PM
Thank you, Rene. Your link answered most of my questions.
Don of Tallahassee -
RE: Early Telescope
Diane > 06-02-2016, 10:20 AM
Hi Don,
It's a lovely picture and despite its date manages to carry over some of the character of the models it used - the style of drawing is like something from eleventh- or twelfth-century England.
Christopher Walker's book, Astronomy Before the Telescope is helpful about these things, since he read a heap of the original Latin works, as well as regarding the pictures. Apparently sighting tubes were in use from about 800 AD.
The edition of his work which I have is dated 1996. Not sure if it's been re-published since.
On p.177 ..
Quote:From Carolingian times onwards (ca. 800 AD) ... monastic schools...astronomy... still a predominantly literary activity... but the introduction of new instruments in the form of simple sighting tubes testifies to an increased interest in observing the details of the starry heavens more closely, and records of spectacular phenomena such as comets and eclipses were frequently entered into calendars and historical annals".
Latin illustrators quite often just copy from an older text, maybe 'updating' the clothes a bit, or making the figures look a little more like the intended audience, so I should think it would be a good idea to read the text with that picture to be sure that it actually refers to a recent event, and hasn't just become a schematic or generic sort of picture.
D.N. O'Donovan