From Earth-bound to satellite : telescopes, skills, and networks / edited by Alison D. Morrison-Low ... [and others].

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: writing the history of the telescope: makers, markets and mapping / Sven Dupre -- Galileo's shopping list: an overlooked document about early telescope making / Giorgio Strano -- Johann Wiesel's telescopes and his clientele / Inge Keil -- 'Invisible technician' made visible: telescope making in the seventeenth and early eighteenth-century Dutch republic / Huib J. Zuidervaart -- Art of polishing: practice and prose in eighteenth-century telescope making / Jim A. Benett -- Networks of telescope makers and the evolution of skill: evidence from observatory and museum collections / Gloria Clifton -- Scoping longitude: optical designs for navigation at sea / Richard Dunn -- Following the stars: clockwork for telescopes in the nineteenth century / James Caplan -- Telescopes made in Berlin: from Carl Bamberg to Askania / Gudrun Wolfschmidt -- Wide-field photographic telescopes: the Yale, Harvard and Harvard/Smithsonian meteor and satellite camera networks / Teasel Muir-Harmony, David H. DeVorkin, Peter Abrahams -- Making of space astronomy: a gift of the Cold War / Robert W. Smith.

The volume forms a part of the celebrations marking the anniversary of the invention of the telescope. From its Renaissance beginnings to yesterday{u2019}s Cold War, the essays contributed here throw a spotlight on a number of significant episodes in the continuing adventures of this well-loved instrument, which has played a crucial role in Man{u2019}s thinking about his position {u2013} literally and philosophically {u2013} in the universe. Drawn from various conferences held by the Scientific Instrument Commission of the International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science between 2007 and 2009, these papers make a substantial contribution to our current knowledge about this fascinating optical instrument.