Timeline of telescopes, observatories, and observing technology

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Timeline of telescopes, observatories, and observing technology.

Contents 1 Before Common Era (B.C.) 1.1 300 2 Common Era (A.D.) 2.1 700s 2.2 800s 2.3 900s 2.4 1000s 2.5 1100s 2.6 1200s 2.7 1400s 2.8 1500s 2.9 1600s 2.10 1700s 2.11 1800s 2.12 1900s 2.12.1 1910s 2.12.2 1930s 2.12.3 1940s 2.12.4 1950s 2.12.5 1960s 2.12.6 1970s 2.12.7 1980s 2.12.8 1990s 2.13 2000s 3 See also 4 References

[edit] Before Common Era (B.C.)

[edit] 300

• Thirteen Towers solar observatory, Chankillo, Peru

[edit] Common Era (A.D.)

[edit] 700s

• 700-77 - The first Zij treatise, Az-Zīj ‛alā Sinī al-‛Arab, written by Ibrahim al-Fazari and Muhammad al-Fazari
• 700-96 - Brass astrolabe constructed by Muhammad al-Fazari based on Hellenistic sources
• ca. 777 - Yaqūb ibn Tāriq wrote Az-Zij al-Mahlul min as-Sindhind li-Darajat Daraja based on Brahmagupta and Surya Siddhanta

[edit] 800s

• 800-33 - Baghdad observatory in Iraq by Arabic astronomers under al-Mamun
• 800-50 - Zij al-Sindhind written by Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī (Algorismi)

[edit] 900s

• 900-29 - Az-Zij as-Sabi written by Muhammad ibn Jābir al-Harrānī al-Battānī (Albatenius)

[edit] 1000s

• 1000 - Mokattam observatory in Egypt for al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah
• 1023 - Hamedan observatory in Persia
• ca. 1030 - Treasury of Optics by Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) of Iraq and Egypt
• 1074-92 - Malikshah observatory at Isfahan used by Omar Khayyám

[edit] 1100s

• 1114–87 - Tables of Toledo based on Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī (Arzachel) published by Gerard of Cremona
• 1115-16 - Sinjaric Tables written by al-Khazini
• 1119-25 - Cairo al-Bataihi observatory for Al-Afdal Shahanshah
• cs. 1020 - Geared mechanical astrolabe invented by Ibn Samh

[edit] 1200s

• 1252-72 - Alfonsine tables recorded
• 1259 - Maragheh observatory and library of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi by Mangu under Hulagu Khan
• ca. 1270 - Terrace for Managing Heaven 26 observatory network of Guo Shoujing under Khubilai Khan
• 1272 - Zij-i Ilkhani written by Nasir al-Din al-Tusi

[edit] 1400s

• 1400-29 - Khaqani Zij by Jamshīd al-Kāshī
• 1417 - Speculum Planetarum by Simones de Selandia
• 1420 - Samarkand observatory of Ulugh Beg
• 1437 - Zij-i-Sultani written by Ulugh Beg
• 1442 - Beijing Ancient Observatory
• 1467-71 - Observatory at Oradea, Hungary for Matthias Corvinus
• 1472 - Nuremberg observatory

[edit] 1500s

• 1540 Apian "Astronomicum Caesareum"
• 1560 - Kassel observatory under Landgrave Wilhelm IV of Hesse
• 1575-80 - Istanbul observatory of al-Din under Sultan Murad III
• 1576 - Royal Danish Astronomical Observatory Uraniborg at Hven by Tycho Brahe
• 1577 - Istanbul observatory of al-Din by Taqi al-Din
• 1577-80 - Unbored Pearl by Taqi al-Din
• 1581 - Royal Danish Astronomical Observatory Stjerneborg at Hven by Tycho Brahe

[edit] 1600s

• 1600 - Prague observatory in Benátky nad Jizerou by Tycho Brahe
• 1603 - Johann Bayer's Uranometria
• 1608 - Hans Lippershey tries to patent an optical refracting telescope
• 1609 - Galileo Galilei builds his first optical refracting telescope
• 1633 - Construction of Leiden University Observatory
• 1641 - William Gascoigne invents telescope cross hairs
• 1641 - Danzig/Gdansk observatory of Jan Hevelius
• 1642 - Copenhagen University Royal observatory
• 1661 - James Gregory proposes an optical reflecting telescope
• 1667 - Paris Observatory
• 1668 - Isaac Newton constructs the first optical reflecting telescope
• 1672 - Laurent Cassegrain designs the Cassegrain telescope
• 1675 - Royal Greenwich Observatory of England

[edit] 1700s

• 1704 - First observatory at Cambridge University (based at Trinity College)
• 1724 - Indian observatory of Sawai Jai Singh at Delhi
• 1725 - St. Petersburg observatory at Royal Academy
• 1732 - Indian observatories of Sawai Jai Singh at Varanasi, Ujjain, Mathura, Madras
• 1733 - Chester Moor Hall invents the achromatic lens refracting telescope
• 1734 - Indian observatory of Sawai Jai Singh at Jaipur
• 1753 - Vilnius observatory at Vilnius University, Lithuania
• 1758 - John Dollond reinvents the achromatic lens
• 1761 - Joseph-Nicolas Delisle 62 observing station network for observing the transit of Venus
• 1769 - Short reflectors used at 63 station network for transit of Venus
• 1780 - Florence Specola observatory
• 1789 - William Herschel finishes a 49-inch (1.2-meter) optical reflecting telescope, located in Slough, England

[edit] 1800s

• 1840 - John William Draper invents astronomical photography and photographs the Moon
• 1845 - Lord Rosse finishes the Birr Castle 72-inch optical reflecting telescope, located in Parsonstown, Ireland
• 1849 - Santiago observatory set up by USA, later becomes Chilean National
• 1859 - Kirchoff and Bunsen develop spectroscopy
• 1864 - Herschel's so-called GC (General Catalogue) of nebulae and star clusters published
• 1868 - Janssen and Lockyer discover Helium observing spectra of Sun
• 1871 - German Astronomical Association organized network of 13 (later 16) observatories for stellar proper motion studies
• 1872 - Henry Draper invents astronomical spectral photography and photographs the spectrum of Vega
• 1878 - Dreyer published a supplement to the GC of about 1000 new objects
• 1887 - Paris conference institutes Carte du Ciel project to map entire sky to 14th magnitude photographically
• 1888 - First light of 91cm refracting telescope at Lick Observatory, on Mount Hamilton near San Jose, California
• 1889 - Astronomical Society of the Pacific founded
• 1890 - Albert Michelson proposes the stellar interferometer
• 1892 - George Ellery Hale finishes a spectroheliograph, which allows the Sun to be photographed in the light of one element only
• 1897 - Alvan Clark finishes the Yerkes 40-inch optical refracting telescope, located in Williams Bay, Wisconsin

[edit] 1900s

• 1904 - Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington founded

[edit] 1910s

• 1917 - Mount Wilson 100-inch optical reflecting telescope begins operation, located in Mount Wilson, California
• 1919 - International Astronomical Union (IAU) founded

[edit] 1930s

• 1930 - Bernard-Ferdinand Lyot invents the coronagraph
• 1930 - Karl Jansky builds a 30-meter long rotating aerial radio telescope
• 1933 - Bernard-Ferdinand Lyot invents the Lyot filter
• 1934 - Bernhard Schmidt finishes the first 14-inch Schmidt optical reflecting telescope
• 1936 - Palomar 18-inch Schmidt optical reflecting telescope begins operation, located in Palomar, California
• 1937 - Grote Reber builds a 31-foot radio telescope

[edit] 1940s

• 1941 - Dmitri Maksutov invents the Maksutov telescope which is adopted by major observatories in the Soviet Union and internationally. It is now also a popular design with amateur astronomers
• 1946 - Martin Ryle and his group perform the first astronomical observations with a radio interferometer
• 1947 - Bernard Lovell and his group complete the Jodrell Bank 218-foot non-steerable radio telescope
• 1949 - Palomar 48-inch Schmidt optical reflecting telescope begins operation, located in Palomar, California
• 1949 - Palomar 200-inch optical reflecting telescope (Hale telescope) begins regular operation, located in Palomar, California

[edit] 1950s

• 1954 - Earth rotation aperture synthesis suggested (see e.g. Christiansen and Warburton (1955))
• 1957 - Bernard Lovell and his group complete the Jodrell Bank 250-foot (75-meter) steerable radio telescope (the Lovell Telescope)
• 1957 - Peter Scheuer publishes his P(D) method for obtaining source counts of spatially unresolved sources
• 1959 - Radio Observatory of the University of Chile, located at Maipú founded
• 1959 - The 3C catalogue of radio sources is published (revised in 1962)
• 1959 - The Shane 120-Inch Telescope Opened at Lick Observatory

[edit] 1960s

• 1960 - Owens Valley 27-meter radio telescopes begin operation, located in Big Pine, California
• 1961 - Parkes 64-metre radio telescope begins operation, located near Parkes, Australia
• 1962 - European Southern Observatory (ESO) founded
• 1962 - Kitt Peak solar observatory founded
• 1962 - Green Bank 90m radio telescope
• 1962 - Orbiting Solar Observatory 1 satellite launched
• 1963 - Arecibo 300-meter radio telescope begins operation, located in Arecibo, Puerto Rico
• 1964 - Martin Ryle's 1-mile radio interferometer begins operation, located in Cambridge, England
• 1965 - Owens Valley 40-meter radio telescope begins operation, located in Big Pine, California
• 1967 - First VLBI images, with 183 km baseline
• 1969 - Observations start at Big Bear Solar Observatory, located in Big Bear, California
• 1969 Las Campanas Observatory

[edit] 1970s

• 1970 - Cerro Tololo 158-inch optical reflecting telescope begins operation, located in Cerro Tololo, Chile
• 1970 - Kitt Peak National Observatory 158-inch optical reflecting telescope begins operation, located near Tucson, Arizona
• 1970 - Uhuru x-ray telescope satellite
• 1970 - Antoine Labeyrie performs the first high-resolution optical speckle interferometry observations
• 1973 - UK Schmidt Telescope 1.2 metre optical reflecting telescope begins operation, located in Anglo-Australian Observatory near Coonabarabran, Australia
• 1974 - Anglo-Australian Telescope 153-inch optical reflecting telescope begins operation, located in Anglo-Australian Observatory near Coonabarabran, Australia
• 1975 - Gerald Smith, Frederick Landauer, and James Janesick use a CCD to observe Uranus, the first astronomical CCD observation
• 1975 - Antoine Labeyrie builds the first two-telescope optical interferometer
• 1976 - The 6-m BTA-6 (Bolshoi Teleskop Azimutalnyi or “Large Altazimuth Telescope”) goes into operation on Mt. Pashtukhov in the Russian Caucasus
• 1978 - Multiple Mirror 176-inch equivalent optical/infrared reflecting telescope begins operation, located in Amado, Arizona
• 1978 - International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) telescope satellite
• 1978 - Einstein High Energy Astronomy Observatory x-ray telescope satellite
• 1979 - UKIRT 150-inch infrared reflecting telescope begins operation, located at Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii
• 1979 - Canada-France-Hawaii 140-inch optical reflecting telescope begins operation, located at Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii
• 1979 - NASA Infrared Telescope Facility[1] 120-inch infrared reflecting telescope begins operation, located at Mauna Kea, Hawaii

[edit] 1980s

• 1980 - Completion of construction of the VLA, located in Socorro, New Mexico
• 1983 - Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) telescope
• 1987 - 15-m James Clerk Maxwell Telescope UK submillimetre telescope installed at Mauna Kea Observatory
• 1987 - 5-m Swedish-ESO Submillimetre Telescope (SEST) installed at the ESO La Silla Observatory
• 1988 - Australia Telescope Compact Array aperture synthesis radio telescope begins operation, located near Narrabri, Australia
• 1989 - Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite

[edit] 1990s

• 1990 - Hubble 2.4m space Telescope launched, mirror found to be flawed
• 1991 - Compton Gamma Ray Observatory satellite
• 1993 - Keck 10-meter optical/infrared reflecting telescope begins operation, located at Mauna Kea, Hawaii
• 1993 - Very Long Baseline Array of 10 dishes
• 1995 - Cambridge Optical Aperture Synthesis Telescope (COAST) -- the first very high resolution optical astronomical images (from aperture synthesis observations)
• 1995 - Giant Meterwave radio telescope of thirty 45 m dishes at Pune
• 1996 Keck 2 10-meter optical/infrared reflecting telescope begins operation, located at Mauna Kea, Hawaii
• 1997 - The Japanese HALCA satellite begins operations, producing first VLBI observations from space, 25,000 km maximum baseline
• 1998 - First light at VLT1, the 8.2 m ESO telescope.

[edit] 2000s

• 2001 - First light at the Keck Interferometer. Single-baseline operations begin in the near-infrared.
• 2001 - First light at VLTI interferometry array. Operations on the interferometer start with single-baseline near-infrared observations with the 103 m baseline.
• 2005 - First imaging with the VLTI using the AMBER optical aperture synthesis instrument and three VLT telescopes.
• 2005 - First light at SALT, the largest optical telescope in the southern hemisphere, with a primary mirror diameter of 11 meters.

[edit] See also

• Timeline of telescope technology

[edit] References

Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy ISBN 0-521-41158-0

History of Science and Technology ISBN 0-87196-475-9

Wilson Chronology of Science and Technology ISBN 0-8242-0933-8

Encyclopedia of the history of Arabic science ISBN 0-415-12410-7