What year brought the first recorded use of a telescope ?
1600 - Prague observatory in Benátky nad Jizerou by Tycho Brahe 1603 - Johann Bayer 's " Uranometria " is published 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 " practical " reflecting telescope , the Newtonian telescope 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