"Seeing at a Distance"
"Far Seeing"

     The basic optics (positive lenses) needed to make a telescope existed as early as the 13th century.

     It is virtually certain that telescopes were being used by a few scientifically minded men in England by the late 1570's.

     The first patent claim came from the Netherlands in 1608, from an obscure spectacle maker, Hans Lippershey:

                    .....possibly two children were playing with some lenses and by chance happened to hold them up in such a way to notice that the weather vane of a nearby church seemed magnified.....
                    .....Lippershey is said to have duplicated this and immediately realized the potential of this discovery.....
                    .....controversary as to what kinds of lenses were used, whether or not they were held by hand or in a tube.....

     News spread quickly throughout Europe, and by 1609 telescopes were for sale in Paris, Frankfort, Milan, and London.