Galileo Galilei the use of the compasses for 120 lire. In about 1593, Galileo constructed a thermometer, using the expansion and contraction of air in a bulb to move water in an attached tube. In 1609, Galileo was, along with Englishman Thomas Harriot and others, among the first to use a refracting telescope as an instrument to observe stars, planets or moons. The name "telescope" was coined for Galileo's instrument by a Greek mathematician, Giovanni Demisiani, at a banquet held in 1611 by Prince Federico Cesi to make Galileo a member of his Accademia dei Lincei. The name was derived from the
Zacharias Janssen being a spectacle maker before 1615. Albert Van Helden, Sven Dupré, Rob Van Gent, and Huib Zuidervaart in their book "Origins of the Telescope" came to the conclusion that Janssen may not have become an optician until 1616 and that the claims surrounding him as the inventor of the telescope and the microscope were the fabrications of his own son, Johannes Zachariassen, who claimed it as a matter of fame and for possible financial gain. In the years 1613–1619, Janssen was tried several times for counterfeiting coins. Janssen grew up right next to the Middleburg mint where his brother-in-law worked.