Io@400: The 400th Anniversary of Galileo's Discovery of the Galilean Moons

Thursday is the 400th anniversary of the discovery of Io and the other Galilean satellites by Galileo Galilei.  In celebration of this event, I will be posting a series of articles here over the next five days covering various topics related to the discovery of the Galilean moons.  On Monday and Tuesday, we will look at Galileo's first observations with a telescope building on the design of a Dutch patent by Hans Lippershey.  On Wednesday, we will look at Simon Marius and the claim of priority he presented in his 1614 book, Mundus Iovialis anno M.DC.IX Detectus Ope Perspicilli Belgici.  On Thursday, we will take a look back at January 7, 1610.  Finally, on Friday, we will take a look at Galileo's treatise on his discoveries with the telescope, Sidereus Nuncius, and the effects his discoveries had on his career.

• Monday, January 4: Copernicus, Galileo, and the Invention of the Spyglass
• Tuesday, January 5: Looking through the telescope in 1609
• Wednesday, January 6: Simon Marius and the Mundi Iovialis
• Thursday, January 7: 400 years ago today, Cosmica Sidera
• Friday, January 8: The Starry Messenger

I will update this post with the links to these post as they go online over the next few days.  Keep in mind that I am in the Mountain Time Zone here in the US and I will post these articles in the evening here, so they will show up early the next day from what is indicated for European readers or in the early afternoon the next day for Australian readers.  Like I asked a few days ago, if you know of any star parties or other events occurring over this week in commemoration of this important anniversary in astronomy, send me an email and I'll post about them here.

Happy Io Discovery Day!