Was it possible the book was an early proof, printed before the etchings of Galileo's drawings of the Moon were ready, one to which Galileo himself had added his own watercolor paintings of the Moon?

For starters, the moons didn’t always appear in a straight line. “At first, Galileo ‘corrects’ his drawings,” says Reeves. “He figures they should be lined up.” But eventually ...

Galileo announced his findings in the short pamphlet Starry Messenger published in March of 1610, which contained more than seventy drawings of his Moon observations. The reactions were extreme.

The image above is the first known drawing of the Moon made using a telescope. It was done by Thomas Harriot in July 1609, many months before Galileo published his own drawings. It’s crude ...

The first known drawing of the moon through a telescope, by Thomas Harriot, dated 26 July 1609. The drawing pre-dated Galileo Galilei's by several weeks—but it was the latter that won ...

Galileo Moon Drawings If the end of Galileo's life bore the poignant stamp of art, so did its beginning. To this day, on the facade of a Florentine palace, a plaque commissioned by Galileo's disciple ...