Looking back, nothing is more curious in the history of astronomy than the rooted objection which Hevel and others showed to apply the telescope to the pointers and pinnules of the instruments used in their day; but doubtless we must look for the explanation of this not only in the accuracy to which observers had attained by the old method, but in the rude nature of the telescope itself in the early times, before the introduction of the micrometer. We shall show in a future chapter how the modern accuracy has step by step been arrived at; in the present one we have to see what the telescope does for us in the domain of that grand physical astronomy which deals with the number and appearances of the various bodies which people space. Let us, to begin with, try to see how the telescope helps us in the matter of observations of the sun. The sun is about ninety millions of miles away; suppose, therefore, by means of a telescope reflecting or refracting, whichever we like, we use an eyepiece which will magnify say 900 times, we obviously bring the sun within 100,000 miles of us; that is to say, by means of this telescope we can observe the sun with the naked eye as if it were within 100,000 miles of us. One may say, this is something, but not much; it is only about half as far as the moon is from us. But when we recollect the enormous size of the sun, and that if the centre of the sun occupied the centre of our earth the circumference of the sun would extend considerably beyond the orbit of the moon, then one must acknowledge we have done something to bring the sun within half the distance of the moon. Suppose for looking at the moon we use on a telescope a power of 1,000, that is a power which magnifies a thousand times, we shall bring the moon within 240 miles of us, and we shall be able to see the moon with a telescope of that magnifying power pretty much as if the moon were situated somewhere in Lancashire—Lancaster being about 240 miles from London.