'The water is occluding what you'd see, and the atmosphere performs a similar function to occlude the electromagnetic spectrum, as things like X-rays, gamma rays will bounce off,' he added. But the modified telescope he swung toward Jupiter that January evening had a very. Galileo observed Jupiters system through the telescope with one eye. Galileo’s first crude telescope only magnified objects a few times, barely enough to change their appearance. It's kind of like being at the bottom of a pool and looking up,' Odom said. To measure with precision the distance of each satellite from the planet. 'We think about our large ground-based observatories that look into space.

The designator contains the launch year, the launch number of the year and the part of the launch, i.e., 'A' indicates payload, 'B' the rocket booster, or second payload, etc. And while placing observatories far away from city lights, on remote islands or high on mountaintops helps provide that view, the best view comes from going into space. The International designator is an internationally agreed-upon naming convention for satellites. (Julie Thurston Photography / Getty Images)īut for telescopes in observatories to see what the human eye cannot, they need to have a clear view of the electromagnetic energy in space. The observatory is placed on the island's highest point to see the clearest view of the stars.

The NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) at sunset at the Mauna Kea Observatories Summit on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Galileo telescope satellite