In 1668, Isaac Newton constructed by hand the first reflecting telescope in history. It was only about 15 centimeters in length but it performed as well as those of the time of 2,5 meters, and it had nearly 40 increases.

He later made a second one with a 5 centimeter mirror, and on the 11 of January, 1672, he presented it to the Royal Society in London.

This telescope is conserved nowadays in Woolsthrope, Newton's birthplace, and it is on this that this practically identical replica has been made.

How to use: observation is made by applying the eye to the lens located on one side of the tube. To focus the image, screw or unscrew the nut.

Hand-made piece.
Materials: Brass and beech wood.
Dimensions: h=23cm.
Design: Isaac Newton, 1668.

Newton's disc is a cardboard disc with different sectors colored red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.

When turned quickly, the retina receives the sensation of the seven colors of the spectrum simultaneously, and the disc appears white. With this instrument one demonstrates that white light can be broken down into its separate elements. In addition, by means of red, blue and green discs we can make different combinations and observe the resulting colors, as Newton described in his book Optics

Hand-made piece.
Materials: walnut wood and brass.
Dimensions: h=36cm.

This invention has its foundation in a known physiological phenomenon, retinal persistence, which causes the retina of the eye to register an impression during a brief period of time after the image itself has disappeared.

The zoetrope is a perfected version of the taumatrope, invented in 1826 by J.A. Paris, and which consists of a strip of drawings located on the inside of a horizontal cylinder pierced by several slits. When it is spun by the hand, the images are combined and the drawings appear through the slits to be moving, due to retinal persistence. This apparatus is considered the precursor of the cinematograph.

 

 

Hand-made piece.
Materials: boxwood, brass.
Dimensions: h=23,5cm.

Anamorphosis is a prospect technique and it consists to transforming an image that appears distorted from the usual point of view, but when it is reflected about a cylindrical, conical or pyramidal surface, the distortion disappears. Even if the anamorphosis term is introduced during the 17th century, its effects are known since the 15th century, since Leonardo Da Vinci already portrays it on his annotations. The distorted figure or anamorphism was a very popular toy during the 19th century.

In this piece, the transformation has been carried out about a figure in relief and we see how it acquires its natural form through the reflection in a cylindrical mirror. It is about a replica of the 18th century.

Hand-made piece.
Materials: aluminum.

These prisms were designed by Newton in the XVII century, and since then they have come to be used to show the decomposition of light. To show this, a beam of white light is shone through the prism in a darkened room and the result is observed on the wall or a screen - a band in which the colors that compose white light and that constitute the spectrum appear: violet, indigo, green, yellow, orange and red. This is because each color, having a different frequency, presents a characteristic refractive index that deflects at a different angle when crossing the faces of the prism, so that each one occupies a position.

 

 

 

Hand-made piece.
Materials: brass, copper, mahogany and methacrylate.
Dimensions: h=27cm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Materials: brass, copper, boxwood and methacrylate.
Dimensions: h=29cm.

Leewenhoek's Microscope
In Holland 1674, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) saw that objects seen through a converging lens looked to be of greater size. He constructed the first simple microscope by making making the small lenses of shorter focal length. This faithful redesign has a simple, spherical lens with 100x magnification. Observation is somewhat difficult due to the positioning of the eye.
Using this instrument, Leeuwenhoek discovered the first microorganisms: globules of blood, several protozoos, and bacteria. We recommend making the first viewing attempts with filaments of pharmacy cotton and bread mould.

Hand-made piece
Materials: copper and brass
Dimensions: 12 cm in length

 

 

 

Robert Hooke's Microscope
In England 1665, Robert Hooke (1635-1703), without Leeuwenhoek's knowledge, constructed the first compound microscope and later wrote a detailed account of its contruction in his book "Micrographia." The compound microscope has two lenses, the objective and the eyeglass, with no type of correction for the chromatic aberration. It provides 60x magnification and it is thought best for observing opaque samples like rocks, minerals, weaves nonsectioned, and superficial textures.

Hand-made piece
Materials: copper, brass, and leather
Dimensions: 16 cm in height

 

 

 

 

 

Culpeper's Microscope
In England during 1720, Culpeper Edmund Culpeper (1660-1738) developed a microscope with an innovative tripod design and a mirror under the lense to allow better illumination of the sample. This microscope is a scale replica of a 1778 microscope in a private collection. It has a compound eyeglass for better chromatic, spherical correction and of depth of field. It is designed to work with translucent samples and we therefore recommend the purchase of specific biological samples. The magnification of 100x is sufficient to observe vegetal structures, etc.

Hand-made piece
Materials: copper and brass
Dimensions: 18 cm in height

 

It is an optical device, precursor of the film projector, created towards 1640 by the German Jesuit Athanasius Kircher. From the design of a dark camera, who received images of the exterior making them visible in the interior, Kircher thought about inverting the process to take the images inside towards outside.
It is then a dark camera with a game of lenses and a sliding support in which transparencies painted on plaques of glass are placed. These images light up with a lamp of oil and, so that the smoke can have exit, he is endowed to the ensemble with a showy chimney.
The designs keep varying from its invention until an important jump takes place with the incorporation of the incandescent lamp and the lamp arc. Little afterwards the photograph (Niépce, 1826) appears where the painted transparencies are replaced by slides, and only in a few more crossings people arrive to the cinematographic projector (brothers Lumiére, 1895).

The magic lantern that we present him is the model "Lantern Carrée" of Lapierre, France, towards 1880.

Functional facsimile, light source of gasoline or electrical, with achromatic lens of 50 mm.
Materials: zinc beaten by hand, brass, lenses of glass.