400 years of Telescopic Lunar Sketches

400 years of Telescopic Lunar Sketches

The First Lunar Sketches
Sketch by Thomas Harriot and text by Rich Handy

This amazingly simple sketch is one of the first telescopic sketches of the Moon ever made. It even predates Galileo’s beautiful ink wash sketches. It was made by Thomas Harriot of England on July 26, 1609. Between 1609 and 1610 he did several full phase sketches as well as lunar maps. Thomas Harriot was a mathematician of considerable genius who corresponded with some of the greatest scholars of his time. (Image courtesy of the Galileo project), please take some time to visit this fine site to see more of Thomas Harriot and Galileo Galilei’s first sketches of the Moon.

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