this page honors Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
"... sparing no labor or expense, I progressed so far that I constructed for myself an instrument so excellent that things seen through it appear about a thousand times larger and more than thirty times closer than when observed with the natural facility only. It would be entirely superfluous to enumerate how many and how great the advantages of this instrument are on land and at sea. But having dismissed earthly things, I applied myself to explorations of the heavens."