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Christiaan Huygens' Telescope Lenses Tell Us He Was Nearsighted


A world-famous 17th-century astronomer credited with discovering Saturn’s moon Titan may have needed glasses, according to a recent paper in the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science. In an era when telescope technology was less than a century old, and evolving rapidly through trial-and-error iterations, Christiaan Huygens was known for producing lenses of unparalleled quality.

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Christiaan Huygens was one of the first astronomers to apply mathematical principles to the design of optics rather than trial and error, and his telescope could study Saturn's ring system. The Huygenian eyepiece he invented in the 17th century is still in use today