Galileo Galileo (February 15, 1564 - January 8, 1642)

One of the first who used a telescope (a term he coined in April, 1611) to observe the skies in late 1609, and the first to publish his observation to a wider audience; a summary of the first discoveries was published in his famous Sidereus Nuncius (Siderial Messenger) in May 1610. His first telescope had a free aperture of 16 mm and magnification of 21. Discovered many phenomena: Note: Some of these discoveries were independent rediscoveries, e.g. Thomas Harriot discovered the mountains on the Moon and sunspots earlier.

Previously, Galileo had observed and studied the "New Star" of 1604 (Kepler's supernova).

Links:

Posthumous honors are numerous and include trivial things like street names, e.g. in Paris, France: Rue Galilée, and in Munich, Germany: Galileiplatz.


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Hartmut Frommert (spider@seds.org)
Christine Kronberg (smil@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)