Telescopes: What Are Their Uses?

Since the dawn of time, Man has looked up in to the sky and wondered what is beyond the realms of this planet. This curiosity and interest has pushed man to develop tools and techniques to observe the world not only around him, but also above him. One of these endeavours is telescopes, which have been in use by people since the early 1600s (The Galileo Project, 2008). From using telescopes, time has shown that people have always been interested in observing the sky and the different elements, such as planets, stars and other celestial entities. However, the scope of mere observation has evolved to something much more than just gathering data. This report will study the uses of telescopes and how they have changed over time. There are three researched texts which are going to be used in this report along with different diagrams and illustrations to explain the concepts introduced.