The First Moon Map, and Not By Galileo 82
sergio80 writes in with a timely piece of history in this the International Year of Astronomy, celebrating the 400th anniversary of the invention of the telescope. "Galileo Galilei is often credited with being the first person to look through a telescope and make drawings of the celestial objects he observed. While the Italian indeed was a pioneer in this realm, he was not the first..." That honor belongs to Thomas Harriot, an Englishman, who bought his first "Dutch trunke" (i.e. telescope) shortly after its invention in the Netherlands and made a sketch of the moon as seen through it in July of 1609.
Dupe. (Score:1, Informative)
Dupe (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Copyright? (Score:4, Informative)
"if you took your own photo of them, you would have the copyright to it"
Wrong (In the US).
In the US we don't give copyright for simply making a faithful reproduction of anything. You didn't add any new creative element by taking a photograph of a piece of paper. This is why Google does not hold a copyright on the scans of public domain works. (but they do limit their use based on Contracts/TOS, which is fine, you can sign away your rights in a contract)
For the court case which spells this out see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel_Corp [wikipedia.org].
Now, in the UK, what you said is probably correct. They are, in my opinion, wrongly assigning copyright to people based on "sweat of the brow" work, not creativity.
Re:Unsung hero of science? (Score:3, Informative)
Harriot was a well funded professional. However, his funds came from patrons who were politically tainted (if trying to kill your king deserves such an unharsh word.) So I agree that he may have had good reason to keep a low profile for a short while, and by then moon-maps were two a penny. Possibly an accurate term as a penny was worth something back then.
But is someone who published little and apparently avoided risk deserving of the term 'hero'
I really have no idea why he was so well funded over so many years by people who were in and out of power. I suspect he was essentially what would today be a civil servant, a senior scientific officer. ( Whatever the appropriate British term is.) On that basis, he would remain a background figure, much like the mathematician who invented the RSA algorithm before R, S & A did.
The minor bit of irony is that apparently he has a moon crater named after him, but it is on the we-don't-see-it side. (The Larson or Far Side of the moon.) And to cap it off, Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] makes no reference to Thomas Harriot at all. Truly one of the grey suits of British science.