400 years ago this year, people first started turning the newly invented telescope to the sky, and were astonished at what they saw. Galileo, not a fool when it came to self-promotion (though he stumbled a bit later in life), drew up what he saw and published it... starting a revolution in not just astronomy but in all of science, all of humanity. The aftershocks still reverberate today. His telescope was crude by today's standards; lens making wasn't nearly the craft then that it is now. But it was enough to see craters on the Moon, satellites of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, and Saturn's rings. And now, thanks to the International Year of Astronomy, you can experience what Galileo did and, even cooler, share it with others.
One of the Cornerstone projects of IYA 2009 is the creation of the Galileoscope, a replica of what Galileo used to view ...
