It seems that the night of January 7, 1610, is recorded in the journal of Galileo as the night that he first saw the moons of Jupiter. Jane Houston Jones, who writes an aperiodic newsletter for a group of amateur astronomers in Monrovia, CA, has gone to the trouble of commemorating the occasion by posting a scanned image of Galileo’s journal page to a blog site she maintains at JPL. The link is
http://blogs.jpl.nasa.gov/?p=61
Perhaps even more importantly, she went to the trouble of typing to the side what he wrote (as his handwriting leaves a bit to be desired). It is worth the click.
Coming soon is a running series of reviews of important antiquarian books in optics and optical design, and some physics and astronomy. Keep a watch.
Comments