[griffzhowl]

I don't think Galileo was quite the first to make a telescope. He had heard a description of one by someone in the Netherlands, and then designed and built his own. He was the first to use it to observe and describe those otherwise invisible objects in the night sky though

[alphaBetaGamma]

If I remember correctly, in that book Galileo says he heard of someone in the Netherlands having made a microscope, but without any details about how it was made. Armed with the knowledge that something like that was possible, he designs a telescope (lenses only, not a Newton type telescope with a mirror). He build three and used the last and best to do his observations.