Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Sonnenburg Observatory
The Sonnenburg Observatory allowed us to broaden our understanding of early astronomy and how difficult it really was to see the stars during the time of Galileo. We were able to use replica telescopes of the one's that Galileo used to survey the night skies. It was difficult to see through the telescopes because of the early technology of lenses. We also went into the observatory and saw the large telescope. The telescope was made out of the original wood it was built with. The observatory gave us a hands on view of how Galileo and other early astronomers observed the stars.
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It was much harder to look through the telescopes than I thought it was. It was really amazing that Galileo was able to see so much from those and he didn't even know what he was looking for. The big telescope was very impressive and very cool that it was made out of wood.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I could not use the highest magnification telescope; it was too blurry. It was amazing how someone could think of that in that era.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize that it was made out of wood. It seems surprising that they didn't try metal.
ReplyDeleteThat may have something to do with the technology of the time. It may have been easier and much faster for them to create a more precise instrument out of wood than it would have been to work with metal.
DeleteI thought it was cool that in the room with the large telescope the roof could open up and spin around. It was also fun to look through the telescopes as well. I didn't have that hard of time with them, but that may have just been some luck on my part because they are harder to work with then what we are use to and the lens quality is no where near the standards of today.
ReplyDeleteI was surprise how small the lens was. I expected it to be bigger.
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