The parts of the instrument go back to instruments made and used by ancient Greek astronomers.
Galileo was saying the same things as an ancient Greek astronomer.
Because the stars were actually much further away than Greek astronomers postulated (making movement extremely subtle), stellar parallax was not detected until the 19th century.
Accounts do not survive but Greek astronomers must have used an approximation method based on interpolation, which is still used by some amateurs.
Not all Greek astronomers accepted the designation.
Some Greek astronomers worked out calendars based on the eclipse cycle.
Hipparchus is considered to have been among the most important Greek astronomers, because he introduced the concept of exact prediction into astronomy.
This may have been an attempt at explaining the theory of contemporary Greek astronomers such as Eratosthenes that the Earth is round.
Others have speculated that the inventor was Hipparchus, the greatest of all ancient Greek astronomers.
This article concerns the Greek astronomer.