AstroMedia Galileo Telescope

Galileo is famous for being the first man to point a telescope at the night sky. With this simple kit you can build yourself a telescope with an upright image like the one he used in the 17th century. Can you find the moons of Jupiter like he did?

Together with our Kepler Telescope 822.KEP, this kit allows a direct comparison of the two different principles of telescopes. The advantage of the Kepler Telescope is instantly visible.

Can you find the moons of Jupiter, like Galileo did?

A Galilean telescope uses a convex objective lens and a concave eyepiece lens. This has the advantage of producing an upright image, but it also limits the field of view significantly. The lenses of a Kepler telescope on the other hand are both convex, producing an upside-down image, which is no problem for astronomical observations. At the same time the field of view is MUCH larger! With our kit for a Kepler Telescope (see below), you can make the comparison yourself!

As Close to Heaven as Galileo
Galileo did not invent the telescope, but made a decisive improvement shortly after it was invented in Holland. His telescope had a larger, outwardly curved converging lens as an objective (towards the observed object) and a smaller, inwardly curved diverging lens as an eyepiece (towards the eye). Opera glasses are still made according to this principle today.

For Teaching
The Galileo telescope is easy to build and is ideal as teaching material in Secondary Schools. It can of course be used for other group and project work on the subject of astronomy and physics.