Timeline of telescopes, observatories, and observing technology.
Contents |
Before Common Era (B.C.)
2100
1100
- 11th-7th century B.C., Zhou dynasty astronomical observatory (灵台) in today's Xian, China
300
200
- 206-220 B.C., Han dynasty astronomical observatory (灵台) in Chang'an and Luoyang. During East Han dynasty, astronomical observatory (灵台) built in in Yanshi, Henan Province, China
Common Era (A.D.)
600s
- 632-647 Cheomseongdae, an astronomy build in the reign of Queen Seondeok in Gyeongju, then the capital of Shilla, now in present day South Korea
- 618-1279 Tang dynasty-Song dynasty, observatories built in Chang'an, Kaifeng, Hangzhou, China
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
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)
900s
- 900-29 - Az-Zij as-Sabi written by Muhammad ibn Jābir al-Harrānī al-Battānī (Albatenius)
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
- 1086 - Northern Song dynasty astronomical observatory
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
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
- 1276 - Dengfeng Star Observatory Platform, Gaocheng, Dengfeng City, Henan Province, China
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
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
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, the first recorded functional telescope
- 1609 - Galileo Galilei builds his first optical refracting telescope
- 1616 - Niccolò Zucchi experiments with a reflecting 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 with parabolic mirrors
- 1667 - Paris Observatory
- 1668 - Isaac Newton constructs the first "pratical" reflecting telescope, the Newtonian telescope[1]
- 1672 - Laurent Cassegrain designs the Cassegrain telescope
- 1675 - Royal Greenwich Observatory of England
- 1684 - Christiaan Huygens publishes "Astroscopia Compendiaria" in which he described the design of very long aerial telescopes
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 - Real Observatorio de Cádiz (Spain)
- 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 m) optical reflecting telescope, located in Slough, England
- 1798 - Real Observatorio de la Isla de Léon (actualmente Real Instituto y Observatorio de la Armada) (Spain)
1800s
- 1840 - John William Draper invents astronomical photography and photographs the Moon
- 1845 - Lord Rosse finishes the Birr Castle 72-inch (1.8 m) 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, the New General Catalogue
- 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 (1.0 m) optical refracting telescope, located in Williams Bay, Wisconsin
1900s
- 1902 - Dominion Observatory, Ottawa, Canada established
- 1904 - Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington founded
1910s
- 1917 - Mount Wilson 100-inch (2.5 m) optical reflecting telescope begins operation, located in Mount Wilson, California
- 1918 - 1.8m Plaskett Telescope begins operation at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
- 1919 - International Astronomical Union (IAU) founded
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 (360 mm) Schmidt optical reflecting telescope
- 1936 - Palomar 18-inch (460 mm) Schmidt optical reflecting telescope begins operation, located in Palomar, California
- 1937 - Grote Reber builds a 31-foot (9.4 m) radio telescope
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 (66 m) non-steerable radio telescope
- 1949 - Palomar 48-inch (1.2 m) Schmidt optical reflecting telescope begins operation, located in Palomar, California
- 1949 - Palomar 200-inch (5.1 m) optical reflecting telescope (Hale telescope) begins regular operation, located in Palomar, California
1950s
- 1953 - Luoxue Mountain Cosmic Rays Research Center, Yunnan Province, in China founded
- 1954 - Earth rotation aperture synthesis suggested (see e.g. Christiansen and Warburton (1955))
- 1956 - Dwingeloo Radio Observatory 25 m telescope completed, Dwingeloo, The Netherlands
- 1957 - Bernard Lovell and his group complete the Jodrell Bank 250-foot (75 m) 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, Chile founded
- 1959 - The 3C catalogue of radio sources is published (revised in 1962)
- 1959 - The Shane 120-inch (3.0 m) Telescope Opened at Lick Observatory
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, West Virginia 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 (1.6 km) 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
1970s
- 1970 - Cerro Tololo 158-inch (4.0 m) optical reflecting telescope begins operation, located in Cerro Tololo, Chile
- 1970 - Kitt Peak National Observatory 158-inch (4.0 m) 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
- 1970 - Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope completed, near Westerbork, The Netherlands
- 1972 - 100 m Effelsberg radio telescope inaugurated (Germany)
- 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 (3.9 m) 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 (4.5 m) 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 (3.8 m) infrared reflecting telescope begins operation, located at Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii
- 1979 - Canada-France-Hawaii 140-inch (3.6 m) optical reflecting telescope begins operation, located at Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii
- 1979 - NASA Infrared Telescope Facility[1] 120-inch (3.0 m) infrared reflecting telescope begins operation, located at Mauna Kea, Hawaii
1980s
- 1980 - Completion of construction of the VLA, located in Socorro, New Mexico
- 1983 - Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) telescope
- 1984 - IRAM 30-m telescope at Pico Veleta near Granada, Spain completed
- 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
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 Metrewave 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
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.
See also
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
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