section_path: Career and first scientific contributions/Astronomy/Moon
section_name: Moon
paragraph_text: Moon
  
  On 30 November 1609, Galileo aimed his telescope at the Moon. While not being the first person to observe the Moon through a telescope (English mathematician Thomas Harriot had done so four months before but only saw a "strange spottednesse"), Galileo was the first to deduce the cause of the uneven waning as light occlusion from lunar mountains and craters. In his study, he also made topographical charts, estimating the heights of the mountains. The Moon was not what was long thought to have been a translucent and perfect sphere, as Aristotle claimed, and hardly the first "planet", an "eternal pearl to magnificently ascend into the heavenly empyrian", as put forth by Dante. Galileo is sometimes credited with the discovery of the lunar libration in latitude in 1632, although Thomas Harriot or William Gilbert may have done so before.
  
  The painter Cigoli, a friend of Galileo, included a realistic depiction of the Moon in one of his paintings; he probably used his own telescope to make the observation.