It has been 400 years since Galileo Galilei first walked out into a field and trained his telescope upon the heavens. To celebrate this extraordinary anniversary, a special series of Hubblecast podcasts is devoted to the telescope — the historical development, the scientific importance, the technological breakthroughs, and also the people behind this ground-breaking invention, their triumphs and their failures.

In this first chapter of the Special Edition of Hubblecast, Dr. J takes you on a whirl-wind tour of the invention of the telescope as you meet inventors from Hans Lipperhey to Galileo Galilei to Christiaan Huygens. Who invented the telescope? What was it first used for? How did early telescopes evolve? Sit back and enjoy the view!

Read more and download high-resolution versions of this video on: http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/html/hubblecast17a.html