1 . Conventional wisdom says that Dutchman Hans Lippershey invented the telescope in 1608 , but legend has it that the device was really invented three years earlier by kids playing with lenses in a spectacle-maker ’ s shop . That kind of stuff used to happen in the days before the Xbox .
2 . Early telescopes sold like mad to merchants , who used them to spot approaching trade ships in hopes of beating out competitors .
3 . Telescopes gave rise to the first high-speed telecommunications networks : spyglasses that were used to relay semaphore signals from miles away .
4 . Galileo was the first to turn the telescope skyward , leading to the discovery of Jupiter ’ s satellites and craters on the moon . Less cleverly , he also pointed his telescope at the sun , which may have triggered his later blindness .
5 . Ireland ’ s “ Leviathan of Parsonstown ,” a 40-ton reflecting telescope built by the Earl of Rosse in 1845 , was the world ’ s largest for seven decades . But wet weather kept it shut down most of the time ..
6 . Almost every major observatory since then has been built in the clear , thin air of a remote mountaintop .
7 . 7 . To deliver the 100-inch mirror for the Hooker Telescope on Mount Wilson in California , nearly 200 men with ropes guided a truck along a tortuous , eight-hour drive to the top .
8 . But it was worth it . The Hooker Telescope proved that other galaxies exist and that the universe is expanding . 9 . Today , using an Internet-based telescope such as the Seeing in the Dark scope at New Mexico Skies , any amateur