<P> In 1682, the minutes of the Royal Society in London Robert Hooke noted Thomas Digges' 1571 Pantometria, (a book on measurement, partially based on his father Leonard Digges' notes and observations) seemed to give an English claim to the invention of the telescope, describing Leonard as having a fare seeing glass in the mid 1500s based on an idea by Roger Bacon: This seemed to give an English claim to the invention of the telescope . Thomas described it as "by proportional Glasses duly situate in convenient angles, not only discovered things far off, read letters, numbered pieces of money with the very coin and superscription thereof, cast by some of his friends of purpose upon downs in open fields, but also seven miles off declared what hath been done at that instant in private places ." Comments on the use of proportional or "perspective glass" are also made in the writings of John Dee (1575) and William Bourne (1585). Bourne was asked in 1580 to investigate the Diggs device by Queen Elizabeth I's chief advisor Lord Burghley . Bourne's is the best description of it, and from his writing it seemed to consist of peering into a large curved mirror that reflected the image produced by a large lens . The idea of an "Elizabethan Telescope" has been expanded over the years, including astronomer and historian Colin Ronan 1990s explorations concluding this reflecting / refracting telescope was built by Leonard Digges between 1540 and 1559 . This "backwards" reflecting telescope would have been unwieldy, it needed very large mirrors and lens to work, the observer had to stand backwards to look at an upside down view, and Bourne noted it had a very narrow field of view making it unsuitable for military purposes . The optical performance required to see the details of coins lying about in fields, or private activities seven miles away, seems to be far beyond the technology of the time and it could be the "perspective glass" being described was a far simpler idea, originating with Bacon, of using a single lens held in front of the eye to magnify a distant view . </P> <P> A 1959 research paper by Simon de Guilleuma claimed that evidence he had uncovered pointed to the French born spectacle maker Juan Roget (died before 1624) as another possible builder of an early telescope that predated Hans Lipperhey's patent application . inventing early telescope - like devices . </P> <P> Lippershey's application for a patent was mentioned at the end of a diplomatic report on an embassy to Holland from the Kingdom of Siam sent by the Siamese king Ekathotsarot: Ambassades du Roy de Siam envoyé à l'Excellence du Prince Maurice, arrivé à La Haye le 10 Septemb. 1608 (Embassy of the King of Siam sent to his Excellency Prince Maurice, arrived at The Hague on 10 September 1608). This report was issued in October 1608 and distributed across Europe, leading to experiments by other scientists, such as the Italian Paolo Sarpi, who received the report in November, and the English mathematician and astronomer Thomas Harriot, who used a six - powered telescope by the summer of 1609 to observe features on the moon . </P> <P> The Italian polymath Galileo Galilei was in Venice in June 1609 and there heard of the "Dutch perspective glass" by means of which distant objects appeared nearer and larger . Galileo states that he solved the problem of the construction of a telescope the first night after his return to Padua from Venice and made his first telescope the next day by fitting a convex lens in one extremity of a leaden tube and a concave lens in the other one . A few days afterwards, having succeeded in making a better telescope than the first, he took it to Venice where he communicated the details of his invention to the public and presented the instrument itself to the doge Leonardo Donato, who was sitting in full council . The senate in return settled him for life in his lectureship at Padua and doubled his salary . </P>

When was the first telescope used to observe space