"When beggars die, there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes."
— William Shakespeare Julius Cæsar
Thanks to the much-heralded International Year of Astronomy, this much we know: Galileo used a telescope to observe the moon in 1609. But the inventor of the revolutionary resolutionary device remains unknown, and its early history is muddied by simultaneous discoveries and competing claims.
Astrophotography equipment