Seeing the Universe

before 1610 - naked eye astronomy

1608 - Galileo's hand held telescopes

1673 - Hevelius' long telescopes

1780 - Herschel's large reflectors

1838 - Meridian Circles

1845 - Rosse's Leviathian

1890 - Barnard's camera

1923 - The Hooker 100 inch

1948 - The Palomar 200 inch

1990 - The Hubble Space Telescope

1998 - The Keck 10 metre pair

2000 - The VLT array

201? - OWL Plans

How much further?

Astronomers are planning the replacement for the Hubble Space Telescope - The James Webb Space Telescope. It will be launched in 2015. It will orbit the Sun, far from Earth, at a lagrangian point. It will be powerful enough to resolve earth like planets around nearby stars as points of light. Some preliminary designs are shown here.  The James Webb Space Telescope