The most important telescopes in history?

[Marvin Jenkins]

[inFINNity Deck]

Hans Lipperhey's telescope (1608).

Nicolàs

[Marvin Jenkins]

8 minutes ago, pipnina said:

Hubble Space Telescope: It is the source of all those pretty pictures whole generations have grown up seeing as THE bar for quality. Plus it allowed us to see back to near primordial times in a cosmological sense and continues its primary mission of observing and measuring extra galactic supernovae to this day, over 30 years later! Plus it was put into orbit in a space shuttle, one of the coolest things to ever fly.

VLT: One of the first observatories to use a laser guide star system for adaptive optics, and THE best interferometer used for astronomical purposes. Besides being a technical marvel and living breathing science and technological development of the most impressive order, it also pinpointed the exact location of the black hole at the center of our galaxy and constructed an image of betelgeuse with surface detail!

Arecibo: aside from simply being massive and cool (the dome was a 5 story tall building by itself!), the telescope's ability to perform active radar imaging of asteroids was pretty unique and cool. It also captured the minds of many.

And the third one was in a bond movie!

[Marvin Jenkins]

1 minute ago, inFINNity Deck said:

Hans Lipperhey's telescope (1608).

Nicolàs

Very nice instrument but three in an order are needed. At some point I will take a count and announce a winner.

Lets hope it’s not a Tak.

[Marvin Jenkins]

As the OP I am going to throw my hat into the ring…

1, Newtonian

2, Dobsonian (not sure on the rules but the biggest injection to amateur astronomy in history and he gave it up for free)

3, Stellarium, the only night sky I can see most of the time and I can see far farther with more detail than my scopes.

Marv

[saac]

Ok not 3 scopes I know but how about this one making the cut. It's the telescope used by Arthur Eddington in 1919 for his observation of the solar eclipse in Brazil.  This is the work which provided evidence to validate Einstein's theory of General Relativity. 

Eddington's telescope

Jim 

 

Edited February 1, 2023 by saac

[Marvin Jenkins]

1 minute ago, saac said:

Ok not 3 scopes I know but how about this one making the cut. It's the telescope used by Arthur Eddington in 1919 for his observation of the solar eclipse in Brazil.  This is the work which provided evidence to validate Einstein's theory of General Relativity. 

Eddington's telescope

Jim 

 

Have you already nominated three? If you have do you want make a replacement? I have to get my figures right😂

That looks like railway artillery from the First World War.

m

[inFINNity Deck]

21 minutes ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

Very nice instrument but three in an order are needed. At some point I will take a count and announce a winner.

Lets hope it’s not a Tak.

True, but I am not allowed to mention GG.... 😉

So, here is my 123:

1: Hans Lipperhey (first functional telescope, 1608)

2: Thomas Harriot's telescope (first telescope used for lunar (1609) and solar (1610) observations)

3: he who should not be named (first telescope used to observe the Jovian Moons, 1610)

Nicolàs

Edited February 1, 2023 by inFINNity Deck

[saac]

The first and only telescope used to make observations from the surface of another planetary body!

Jim 

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/remembering-the-first-moon-based-telescope

[andrew s]

I know I have had my 3 but it's an impossible task. I forgot about all the scopes that opened up new wavelength,  in space in the IR, Xray and gamma ray,  microwave and radio waves on earth. Not to mention gravitational wave. As we have probed each new area new objects and insights have revealed themselves. 

Regards Andrew 

[saac]

Ok my 123

Arthur Eddington's Solar Observation Telescope

Apollo 16 Moon Telescope

SOFIA Telescope (Boeing 747) - think it was retired last year. 

Jim 

Edited February 1, 2023 by saac

[glafnazur]

1 William Herschel's telescopes which were optically the best telescopes of the time and with which he became the first person to truly catalogue deep sky objects

2 The Hubble Space Telescope for it's ground-breaking discoveries

3 Horn Antenna used to make one of the most important discoveries in all of astronomy (although quite by accident)  - the detection of the cosmic microwave background radiation. 

[saac]

I'm with Andrew on this it is an impossible task - the field is too large. We would side-line so many important telescopes and discoveries. We need categories, including amateur. 

Jim 

[Marvin Jenkins]

6 minutes ago, inFINNity Deck said:

True, but I am not allowed to mention GG.... 😉

So, here is my 123:

1: Hans Lipperhey (first functional telescope, 1608)

2: Thomas Harriot's telescope (first telescope used for lunar (1609) and solar (1610) observations)

3: he who should not be named (first telescope used to observe the Jovian Moons, 1610)

Nicolàs

Your still trying to sneak in a GG scope, not allowed.

[Paul M]

1) The tascoesque 60mm refractor I got for christmas circa 1976/77

2) Ye Olde Fullerscopes 6.25" Newt, circa 1984/5

3) My new RC10, circa last month

If there were 4 slots on offer I'd have put the Hale/Palomar 200" in there., just for the nostalgia.

 

[Marvin Jenkins]

3 minutes ago, saac said:

Ok my 123

Artur Eddington's Solar Observation Telescope

Apollo 16 Moon Telescope

SOFIA Telescope (Boeing 747) - think it was retired last year. 

Jim 

Oh yeh forgot about SOFIA.

[Marvin Jenkins]

2 minutes ago, saac said:

I'm with Andrew on this it is an impossible task - the field is too large. We would side-line so many important telescopes and discoveries. We need categories, including amateur. 

Jim 

I have included amateur in my choice with Dobsonian 

[Marvin Jenkins]

2 minutes ago, Paul M said:

1) The tascoesque 60mm refractor I got for christmas circa 1976/77

2) Ye Olde Fullerscopes 6.25" Newt, circa 1984/5

3) My new RC10, circa last month

If there were 4 slots on offer I'd have put the Hale/Palomar 200" in there., just for the nostalgia.

 

I have been waiting for a Tasco all evening.

[Marvin Jenkins]

1 minute ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

I have been waiting for a Tasco all evening.

No joke. It is a serious offering. How many people started with them. Not sure on historic though.

[saac]

2 minutes ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

No joke. It is a serious offering. How many people started with them. Not sure on historic though.

Definitely, it wasn't so much about what it could do but rather what it inspired. Tasco has to make the cut surely! 

Jim

[Marvin Jenkins]

I have work really early in the morning so I am signing out now.

I trust I am leaving this thread in safe hands. I hope I enough scope nominations and no tomfoolery by morning………

Marvin

[Paul M]

2 minutes ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

I trust I am leaving this thread in safe hands.

🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

It'll be locked by midnight and you'll banned in your absence!!!

[Marvin Jenkins]

Other than coming home from work I will have nothing left in my life🙈

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

3 hours ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

Just to prevent repeats the big question is “The most important three telescopes in history with the exception of Galileo first scope and JWST.

So many scopes from Radio to visual, Solar, Space based, terrestrial, what was observed, or even more importantly what came from the observations. Odd ones like gravitational wave detectors if people think they should be included?

The elephant in the room is of course Hubble, but that scope was named after a man that used a famous scope to discover galaxies and is credited main stream with proving expansion.

1.2.3. Simple really. Marvin

In no particular order and a historical perspective:

The Mt. Wilson Hooker 100 inch.

The Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank.

The Horn Antenna.

 

[andrew s]

Ok my personal two would be my homemade Newts the first with a 8" Hinds A mirror from Fullerscopes followed by a 300mm Zerodur mirror from OO and a my worst, horror of horrors, a Tak Sky 90.

My final and current favourite is obviously the one I have now a 400mm ODK at PixelSkies.  As they say if your not with the scope you love love the scope your with.

Regards Andrew