Sure, I build one for that purpose.The moons are no problem, once you got Jupiter in the view you need to point that scope in the direction of the belts - the moons not always fit the same field of view !
Actually, its a "Super Galilean ". The eyepiece can be exchanged for a very futuristic one, a Keplerian, sortof the UWA back then. Heck, the two are even parfocal .... so with hat one you get the moons and Jupter all into the same view.
But I would not say this was because Galileo wasn't good at making lenses. Mind you, before that no one on earth had any use for a lens more accurate than a dozen lambda. As they only ones in use were for spectacles ... so Galileo was a master back then, the world leading expert in high magnification lenses and telescopes.
And Galileo surely didn't want to wait until he had a 0.99 strehl lens. He used what he had, learned that stopping down helps and "optimized" it for max magnification. He did later make more - for both terrestrial use as well as astronomy. Some of those could be used at much bigger apertures.
Edited by triplemon, 02 February 2025 - 04:58 AM.