Niccolò Zucchi

Niccolò Zucchi (Italian pronunciation: [nikkoˈlɔ dˈdzukki, - tˈtsukki]; 6 December 1586 – 21 May 1670) was an Italian Jesuit, astronomer, and physicist.

As an astronomer he may have been the first to see the belts on the planet Jupiter (on 17 May 1630), and reported spots on Mars in 1640.

His "Optica philosophia experimentis et ratione a fundamentis constituta", published in 1652–56, described his 1616 experiments using a curved mirror instead of a lens as a telescope objective, which may be the earliest known description of a reflecting telescope. In his book, he also demonstrated that phosphors generate rather than store light. He also published two other works on mechanics and machines.