MPJ

Perhaps, it's a little weird for me to begin an article with a glimpse to a romantic movie, but I can't think of a cooler way to start today's topic. When I came up with the idea to write about "Camera Obscura", the first thought that came to my mind was a movie from 1997, called "Addicted to Love". Of all the movies in this genre only a few are on the top of my mind and this one, directed by Griffin Dunne with Matthew Broderick and Meg Ryan in lead roles is definitely the best one I remember. In short, Sam, an astronomer who, in an attempt to win back his girlfriend, turns his astronomical tools into specific spy equipment and by using his dark-chambered pinhole camera manages to observe what is happening in the building across the street in the real time. What he used to achieve this is a principle behind Camera Obscura - a method to project the light through a small hole and create an image on the opposite wall inside a dark room, tent, or box. Someth...

The knowledge and manufacture of lenses were known since the time of the old Greeks (the word optics came from the Greek word ὀπτικά, which means appearance) and later in the old ages with Egyptian scholar Alhazen who made important contributions to the study of optics in general. In Europe, the lenses arrived around 13th century and immediately triggered the invention of the first eyeglasses. However, one important discovery had to wait three centuries later in order to set off a wave of new discoveries in the field of astronomy. The invention was made by Hans Lippershey, the spectacle maker from the Dutch city of Middelburg in Netherlands, who in October 1608 tried to apply for a patent for a tool he described as an aid capable of "seeing faraway things as though nearby" . It consisted of a convex and concave lenses in a tube capable of magnifying objects three or four times. For strange reasons, the patent was rejected, but the new instrument immediately attracted attentio...