Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, a French antiquary and savant, has the use of a telescope newly purchased by his patron, Guillaume du Vair, president of the Parlement of Provence.

Peiresc and Joseph Gaultier use this for observing the skies.

Peiresc discovers the Orion Nebula in 1610; Gaultier becomes the second person to see it in the telescope.

Peiresc and Gaultier observe the moons of Jupiter in November 1610; Peiresc’s courtly suggestion that individual names from the Medici family be applied to these "Medicean stars" is not taken up.