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It is hard for a Moon Traveller reporter to think: Where should a history of man's history of the moon start. Viewing a PBS show this week, it seemed to be that telescope maker Galileo's encounter with the lunar is as good a place as any.
As noted in the show transcript, 'Galileo's daughter was just nine years old on a November night in 1609. That was the evening when Galileo first pointed his new spyglass at the moon setting behind the hills of Padua and began to sketch what he observed. It was the start of eight weeks of sleepless nights spent in his tiny courtyard, suddenly transformed into the world's premiere, astronomical observatory.'
His observations led him to conclude that the surface of the moon is not smooth, uniform, "as a great number of philosophers believe it." Instead, it is not unlike the face of the earth, relieved by chains of mountains and deep valleys. Go to transcript
Related:
The Galileo Project
Institute and Museum of the History of Science (IMSS)
Galileo Galilei's Notes on Motion
Galielo moon drawings search on Google |
