Using the following information, construct a timeline about the development of light telescopes. Put the discoveries in order of when they took place and include pictures of the people and their inventions on the timeline.
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1609: Galileo develops a 0.0381 m lens telescope and sees the nearby planets Mercury and Venus.
1845: Lord Rosse constructs a reflecting telescope in County Offaly with a 18.288 m diameter mirror and discovers the first spiral nebulae.
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1948: the 5.08 m Hale telescope is constructed in California. It continues to make new discoveries about galaxies and quasars.
1990: the Hubble Space telescope is launched into orbit by the space shuttle Discovery. It continues to provide new revelations about deep space, the life and death of stars and the nature of our expanding universe.
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zz z z 1917: the 2.54 m Hooker telescope is developed in California.
1924: Edwin Hubble uses the Hooker telescope to discover the Andromeda nebula, proving that it lay beyond the boundaries of the Milky Way.
1781: William Herschel discovers Uranus with a large reflecting telescope that he designed and built himself.
2005: the twin-mirrored Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) opened in Arizona, produces sharper images than Hubble. The LBT allows us to see to the edge of the observable universe.
People and Science
Galileo was an Italian astronomer. He made huge improvements to the light telescope. He is known as ‘the father of modern astronomy’. His observations of the orbit of Venus and Mercury supported the heliocentric model of orbiting planets. Because he believed that the Earth revolved around the Sun, Galileo was accused of heresy by the Catholic Church. He had to deny his views and was sentenced to house arrest until the end of his life.
z Constellation
When you view the night sky with your eyes, you see constellations of stars. A constellation is a group of stars forming a specific pattern.
One of the most recognisable constellations in the night sky is Orion.
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Fig. 26.2.7 Orion
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Fig. 26.2.5 Galileo
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Galileo’s original telescope
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The Hubble telescope takes pictures of space as it orbits Earth
