Improving it gradually, he succeeded in making one that could magnify thirty times.

Examining the moon, he found that she had valleys like those of the earth, and mountains casting shadows.

It had been said in the old times that in the Pleiades there were formerly seven stars, but a legend related that one of them had mysteriously disappeared.

On turning his telescope toward them, Galileo found that he could easily count not fewer than forty.

In whatever direction he looked, he discovered stars that were totally invisible to the naked eye.
On the night of January 7, 1610, he perceived three small stars in a straight line, adjacent to the planet Jupiter, and, a few evenings later, a fourth.