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The volume forms a part of the celebrations marking the anniversary of the invention of the telescope. From its Renaissance beginnings to yesterday's Cold War, the essays contributed here throw a spotlight on a number of significant episodes in the continuing adventures of this well-loved instrument, which has played a crucial role in Man's thinking about his position - literally and philosophically - in the universe. Drawn from various conferences held by the Scientific Instrument Commission of the International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science between 2007 and 2009, these papers make a substantial contribution to our current knowledge about this fascinating optical instrument.
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Foreword, Alison D. Morrison-Low
Introduction: Writing the History of the Telescope: Makers, Markets and Mapping, Sven Dupré
Galileo's Shopping List: An Overlooked Document about Early Telescope Making, Giorgio Strano
Johann Wiesel's Telescopes and his Clientele, Inge Keil
The 'Invisible Technician' Made Visible: Telescope Making in the Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth-century Dutch Republic, Huib J. Zuidervaart
The Art of Polishing: Practice and Prose in Eighteenth-century Telescope Making, Jim A. Bennett
Networks of Telescope Makers and the Evolution of Skill: Evidence from Observatory and Museum Collections, Gloria C. Clifton
Scoping Longitude: Optical Designs for Navigation at Sea, Richard Dunn
Following the Stars: Clockwork for Telescopes in the Nineteenth Century, James Caplan
Telescopes Made in Berlin: From Carl Bamberg to Askania, Gudrun Wolfschmidt
Wide-Field Photographic Telescopes: The Yale, Harvard and Harvard/Smithsonian Meteor and Satellite Camera Networks, Teasel Muir-Harmony, David H. DeVorkin, Peter Abrahams
The Making of Space Astronomy: A Gift of the Cold War, Robert W. Smith
Index
Report
"From Earth-Bound to Satellite is a superb and richly illustrated collection of essays on the history of the telescope [...] Perhaps the greatest strength of the book lies in its fifteen authors and editors eing such well-known scholars of the history of scientific instruments."
- Alexi Baker, University of Cambridge, in: The British Journal for the History of Science 47, pp 181-182
"The many subjects in this volume and their span over space and time will attract a broad and appreciative audience of historians."
- Patrick J. Boner, Johns Hopkins University, in: Renaissance Quarterly 65/4 (Winter 2012), pp. 1232-1233
