Anton Maria Schyrleus of Rheita

"Things appear more alive with the binocular telescope," he wrote, "doubly as exact so to speak, as well as large and bright.

After joining the Augustine order in 1622, he is sent to the university at Ingolstadt, where he probably follows courses in astronomy and learns how to grind lenses.

Here, he comes in the service of Kurfürst Philipp Christoph von Sötern, the archbishop of Trier and Speyer, who is held captive by the Emperor Ferdinand III.

[2] In 1645, he published Oculus Enoch et Eliae, siue, Radius sidereomysticus,[3] a very influential work on optics and astronomy.

In the foreword of its book, which includes a dedication to Jesus Christ and Ferdinand III, Schyrleus boldly declared that after having meditated for a long time on the systems of Ptolemy, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, and other astronomers, he was convinced that all of these scientists had advanced superfluous theories.

He deduced that they had their own independent orbits, and that they illuminated Saturn, which needed light as it was a hundred times less lit by the sun than the Earth.

In regard to extraterrestrial life, Schyrleus wrote, "If Jupiter has…inhabitants…they must be larger and more beautiful than the inhabitants of the Earth, in proportion to the [size] of the two spheres."

His map, however, did not come into standard use, as it was superseded by those made by Hevelius and the Jesuits Giovanni Battista Riccioli and Francesco Maria Grimaldi (1650–1651).