THE ASTRONOMICAL

MESSENGER

CONTAINING AND EXPLAINING RECENT OBSERVATIONS

Made by the benefit of a new Spyglass original: "Perspicilli"; Galileo's term for the telescope before the word 'telescope' was coined regarding the face of the Moon, the Milky Way and Nebulous Stars, innumerable Fixed Stars, and also regarding four Planets

THE MEDICEAN STARS

so named, never before seen until now.

I offer great things indeed in this short treatise for everyone who contemplates Nature to look upon and consider. Great, I say, both because of the excellence of the subject itself, because of their novelty unheard of throughout the ages, and also because of the Instrument The telescope by whose benefit these same things have made themselves revealed to our senses.

It is surely a great thing to add to the vast multitude of Fixed Stars Fixed Stars: stars that appear to stay in the same position relative to one another, unlike planets which have been able to be seen by natural means until this day, and to set before the eyes other innumerable stars never seen before, which surpass the old, known stars in number by more than ten times.

It is most beautiful and pleasing to the sight to behold the body of the Moon, which is distant from us by nearly sixty earthly diameters, from so near as if