Timeline of telescopes, observatories, and observing technology.

Timeline

Before Common era

1000s

• 1000 - Mokattam observatory, Egypt for al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah
• 1023 - Hamadan observatory
• ca. 1030 - Treasury of Optics by Ibn al-Haytham of Egypt Alhazen
• 1074-92 - Malikshah observatory at Isfahan used by Khayyam

1100s

• 1119-25 - Cairo al-Bataihi observatory for al-Afdal

1200s

• 1252-72 - Alphonsine tables recorded
• 1259 - Maragha Observatory and library of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi by Mangu under Khan Hulagu
• ca. 1270 - Terrace for Managing Heaven 26 observatory network of Guo Shoujing under Khubilai Khan

1400s

• 1417 - Speculum Planetarum by Simones de Selandia
• 1420 - Samarkand observatory of Ulugh Beg
• 1442 - Beijing Ancient Observatory
• 1467-71 - Observatory at Oradea, Hungary for Matthias Corvinus
• 1472 - Nuremberg observatory

1500s

• 1540 Apian "Astronomicum Caesareum"
• 1560 - Kassel observatory under Landgrave Wilhelm IV of Hesse
• 1575-80 - Istanbul observatory of al-Din under Sultan Murad III
• 1576 - Royal Danish Astronomical Observatory Uraniborg at Hven by Tycho Brahe
• 1581 - Royal Danish Astronomical Observatory Stjerneborg at Hven by Tycho Brahe

1600s

• 1600 - Prague observatory in Benátky nad Jizerou by Tycho Brahe
• 1603 - Johann Bayer's Uranometria
• 1608 - Hans Lippershey tries to patent an optical refracting telescope
• 1609 - Galileo Galilei builds his first optical refracting telescope
• 1633 - Construction of Leiden University Observatory
• 1641 - William Gascoigne invents telescope cross hairs
• 1641 - Danzig/Gdansk observatory
• 1642 - Copenhagen University Royal observatory
• 1661 - James Gregory proposes an optical reflecting telescope
• 1667 - Paris Observatory
• 1668 - Isaac Newton constructs the first optical reflecting telescope
• 1672 - Laurent Cassegrain designs the Cassegrain telescope
• 1675 - Royal Greenwich Observatory of England

1700s

• 1704 - First observatory at Cambridge University (based at Trinity College)
• 1705 - Berlin Observatory
• 1724 - Indian observatory of Sawai Jai Singh at Delhi
• 1725 - St. Petersburg observatory at Royal Academy
• 1732 - Indian observatories of Sawai Jai Singh at Varanasi, Ujjain, Mathura, Madras
• 1733 - Chester Moor Hall invents the achromatic lens refracting telescope
• 1734 - Indian observatory of Sawai Jai Singh at Jaipur
• 1753 - Vilnius observatory at Vilnius University, Lithuania
• 1758 - John Dollond reinvents the achromatic lens
• 1761 - Joseph-Nicolas Delisle 62 observing station network for observing the transit of Venus
• 1769 - Short reflectors used at 63 station network for transit of Venus
• 1780 - Florence Specola observatory
• 1789 - William Herschel finishes a 49-inch (1.2-meter) optical reflecting telescope, located in Slough, England

1800s

• 1840 - J.W. Draper invents astronomical photography and photographs the Moon
• 1845 - Lord Rosse finishes the Birr Castle 72-inch optical reflecting telescope, located in Parsonstown, Ireland
• 1849 - Santiago observatory set up by USA, later becomes Chilean National
• 1859 - Kirchoff and Bunsen develop spectroscopy
• 1864 - Herschel's so-called GC (General Catalogue) of nebulae and star clusters published
• 1868 - Janssen and Lockyer discover Helium observing spectra of Sun
• 1871 - German Astronomical Association organized network of 13 (later 16) observatories for stellar proper motion studies
• 1872 - Henry Draper invents astronomical spectral photography and photographs the spectrum of Vega
• 1878 - Dreyer published a supplement to the GC of about 1000 new objects
• 1887 - Paris conference institutes Carte du Ciel project to map entire sky to 14th magnitude photographically
• 1888 - First light of 91cm refracting telescope at Lick Observatory, on Mount Hamilton near San Jose, California
• 1889 - Astronomical Society of the Pacific founded
• 1890 - Albert Michelson proposes the stellar interferometer
• 1892 - George Ellery Hale finishes a spectroheliograph, which allows the Sun to be photographed in the light of one element only
• 1897 - Alvan Clark finishes the Yerkes 40-inch optical refracting telescope, located in Williams Bay, Wisconsin

1900s

• 1904 - Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington founded

1910s

• 1917 - Mount Wilson 100-inch optical reflecting telescope begins operation, located in Mount Wilson, California
• 1919 - International Astronomical Union (IAU) founded

1930s

• 1930 - Bernard-Ferdinand Lyot invents the coronagraph
• 1930 - Karl Jansky builds a 30-meter long rotating aerial radio telescope
• 1933 - Bernard-Ferdinand Lyot invents the Lyot filter
• 1934 - Bernhard Schmidt finishes the first 14-inch Schmidt optical reflecting telescope
• 1936 - Palomar 18-inch Schmidt optical reflecting telescope begins operation, located in Palomar, California
• 1937 - Grote Reber builds a 31-foot radio telescope

1940s

• 1941 - Dmitri Maksutov invents the Maksutov telescope which is adopted by major observatories in the Soviet Union and internationally. It is now also a popular design with amateur astronomers
• 1946 - Martin Ryle and his group perform the first astronomical observations with a radio interferometer
• 1947 - Bernard Lovell and his group complete the Jodrell Bank 218-foot non-steerable radio telescope
• 1949 - Palomar 48-inch Schmidt optical reflecting telescope begins operation, located in Palomar, California
• 1949 - Palomar 200-inch optical reflecting telescope (Hale telescope) begins regular operation, located in Palomar, California

1950s

• 1954 - Earth rotation aperture synthesis suggested (see e.g. Christiansen and Warburton (1955))
• 1957 - Bernard Lovell and his group complete the Jodrell Bank 250-foot (75-meter) steerable radio telescope
• 1957 - Peter Scheuer publishes his P(D) method for obtaining source counts of spatially unresolved sources
• 1959 - Radio Observatory of the University of Chile, located at Maipú founded
• 1959 - The 3C catalogue of radio sources is published (revised in 1962)

1960s

• 1960 - Owens Valley 27-meter radio telescopes begin operation, located in Big Pine, California
• 1961 - Parkes 64-metre radio telescope begins operation, located near Parkes, Australia
• 1962 - European Southern Observatory (ESO) founded
• 1962 - Kitt Peak solar observatory founded
• 1962 - Green Bank 90m radio telescope
• 1962 - Orbiting Solar Observatory 1 satellite launched
• 1963 - Arecibo 300-meter radio telescope begins operation, located in Arecibo, Puerto Rico
• 1964 - Martin Ryle's 1-mile radio interferometer begins operation, located in Cambridge, England
• 1965 - Owens Valley 40-meter radio telescope begins operation, located in Big Pine, California
• 1967 - First VLBI images, with 183 km baseline
• 1969 - Observations start at Big Bear Solar Observatory, located in Big Bear, California
• 1969 Las Campanas Observatory

1970s

• 1970 - Cerro Tololo 158-inch optical reflecting telescope begins operation, located in Cerro Tololo, Chile
• 1970 - Kitt Peak National Observatory 158-inch optical reflecting telescope begins operation, located near Tucson, Arizona
• 1970 - Uhuru x-ray telescope satellite
• 1970 - Antoine Labeyrie performs the first high-resolution optical speckle interferometry observations
• 1973 - UK Schmidt Telescope 1.2 metre optical reflecting telescope begins operation, located in Anglo-Australian Observatory near Coonabarabran, Australia
• 1974 - Anglo-Australian Telescope 153-inch optical reflecting telescope begins operation, located in Anglo-Australian Observatory near Coonabarabran, Australia
• 1975 - Gerald Smith, Frederick Landauer, and James Janesick use a CCD to observe Uranus, the first astronomical CCD observation
• 1975 - Antoine Labeyrie builds the first two-telescope optical interferometer
• 1976 - The 6-m BTA-6 (Bolshoi Teleskop Azimutalnyi or “Large Altazimuth Telescope”) goes into operation on Mt. Pashtukhov in the Russian Caucasus
• 1978 - Multiple Mirror 176-inch equivalent optical/infrared reflecting telescope begins operation, located in Amado, Arizona
• 1978 - International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) telescope satellite
• 1978 - Einstein High Energy Astronomy Observatory x-ray telescope satellite
• 1979 - UKIRT 150-inch infrared reflecting telescope begins operation, located at Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii
• 1979 - Canada-France-Hawaii 140-inch optical reflecting telescope begins operation, located at Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii
• 1979 - NASA Infrared Telescope Facility^* 120-inch infrared reflecting telescope begins operation, located at Mauna Kea, Hawaii

1980s

• 1980 - Completion of construction of the VLA, located in Socorro, New Mexico
• 1983 - Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) telescope
• 1987 - 15-m James Clerk Maxwell Telescope UK submillimetre telescope installed at Mauna Kea Observatory
• 1987 - 5-m Swedish-ESO Submillimetre Telescope (SEST) installed at the ESO La Silla Observatory
• 1988 - Australia Telescope Compact Array aperture synthesis radio telescope begins operation, located near Narrabri, Australia
• 1989 - Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite

1990s

• 1990 - Hubble 2.4m space Telescope launched, mirror found to be flawed
• 1991 - Compton Gamma Ray Observatory satellite
• 1993 - Keck 10-meter optical/infrared reflecting telescope begins operation, located at Mauna Kea, Hawaii
• 1993 - Very Long Baseline Array of 10 dishes
• 1995 - Cambridge Optical Aperture Synthesis Telescope (COAST) -- the first very high resolution optical astronomical images (from aperture synthesis observations)
• 1995 - Giant Meterwave radio telescope of thirty 45 m dishes at Pune
• 1997 - The Japanese Halca satellite begins operations, producing first VLBI observations from space, 25,000 km maximum baseline
• 1998 - First light at VLT1, the 8.2 m ESO telescope.

2000s

• 2001 - First light at the Keck Interferometer. Single-baseline operations begin in the near-infrared.
• 2001 - First light at VLTI interferometry array. Operations on the interferometer start with single-baseline near-infrared observations with the 103 m baseline.
• 2005 - First imaging with the VLTI using the AMBER optical aperture synthesis instrument and three VLT telescopes.

References

Cambridge Illustrated History of Astronomy ISBN 0521411580

History of Science and Technology ISBN 0-87196-475-9

Wilson Chronology of Science and Technology ISBN 0-8242-0933-8

Encyclopedia of the history of Arabic science ISBN 0415124107

Technology timelines | Astronomy timelines | Astronomical observatories | Astronomical_imaging | Observational_astronomy