Quote Originally Posted by KJ6BSO View Post
Galileo is one of my heroes but he did not invent the telescope. It may have been one Hans Lippershey, a German-Dutch spectacle maker, based on the fact the he was the first to apply for a patent for one, but no one is entirely sure; the most likely scenario is that, much like with the airplane, it was a number of people building on each other's work. Galileo made some improvements on it but his real claim to telescopic fame was that he was one of the first to turn the device to the sky, write down what he saw and then publish it. For this, he's often called the first real scientist.

Well, if it's used horizontally as in looking in the distance, to me it's not a telescope but a spotting scope. Yes others built tubes with lenses at a fixed distance, but none of them looked up.

That to me is what makes it a telescope.