Who first looked at the Moon through a telescope? The honest answer is that we do not know. We cannot even be sure as to when the telescope was invented, let alone who was first to look at the Moon through one. Until a few years ago most historians had settled upon 1608 as the probable year of invention of the telescope and a Dutch spectacle maker, Hans Lippershey, as its probable inventor. Recently, however, evidence for an earlier invention has come to light. For instance, an Englishman, Leonard Digges, is thought to have produced a form of telescope sometime around 1555.

What we can be certain of is that Galileo heard of the Dutch telescope and, with few clues to help him, he did manage to design and build a small refracting telescope for himself in 1609. Shortly thereafter he built other slightly better and more powerful versions (though still extremely imperfect and lacking in magnification by modern standards) and we know that he used them to observe the celestial bodies, including the Moon. Galileo made sketches of the lunar surface.

An Englishman, Thomas Harriott, had managed to obtain a telescope from Europe and also used it to observe the Moon at about the same time as Galileo. Harriott even produced what was very probably the first complete map of the Moon's Earth-facing side to have been made using optical aid. Despite the imperfections of his telescope, Harriott's map does show features we can recognise today.