IF you were asked who invented the telescope you'd probably say Galileo, right? Wrong.
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It's believed a Dutch spectacle maker, Hans Lipperhey, got the idea first in1608.
After learning of the new device, Galileo began to design and build them himself. He turned his first telescopes on Jupiter, the Moon, and Venus this very week back in 1609 and published his revolutionary results a year later.
In fact, Galileo's telescope was not even the first to gaze into the heavens. That accolade goes to Englishman Thomas Harriot, who drew Earth's moon in July 1609, months before Galileo. Even so, Galileo went on to discover Venus had phases, just like the Moon, Saturn's ring system, Jupiter's moons and discovered the lunar surface pockmarked with craters and rift valleys.
When we talk about the history of astronomy in Australia a lot of its rich heritage is owed in part to our own Hastings district, starting with Annabella Boswell, the daughter of Major Innes and her diary records of the great comet in March 1843.
Looming large, the comet appeared high and bright in the Hastings skies, terrifying local people who were convinced it foretold the end of the world. Annabella described it as, "'magnificent, the tail is beautiful, springing upwards from the star like a ball of light."
Who could leave out the early observations from Transit Hill or William Macdonald who moved to Port Macquarie in 1882 as manager of the Bank of NSW. A keen astronomer, he built an observatory behind the bank to house a 6 inch Grub telescope. The telescope was recently purchased by the Australian Museum in Canberra where it has been rebuilt and is on public display.
In more modern times came Port Macquarie Observatory, built in 1962 using an old telescope donated by Bob Stanfield, a publican at Port Macquarie, used for viewing ships at sea.
Ok, let's leave the past and head out into the backyard. It's a big dark sky with no moon this week to drown out the faint glow of planets like Saturn and Mars, both early evening objects. The two dominant constellations in the sky this month are Scorpius (the scorpion) with its hook shaped tail and Sagittarius (the archer) whose bright stars resemble a teapot.
Lastly, early risers can watch the space station pass high overhead from the south-west this Saturday morning at 5.39am for a whopping 6 minutes, the longest you get! Enjoy!