Although today (August 25) is the 400th anniversary of Galileo's presentation of his version of the telescope to the Venetian Senate, the Englishman Thomas Harriot actually made the first observation of the moon using a telescope in July 1609. Unfortunately for Harriot, Galileo published his observations first.
The National Geographic has a great interactive timeline on the development of the telescope, from Galileo's instrument to today's Large Binocular Telescope.
Physics Professors Jon Thaler and Mats Selen are currently working on a cosmology survey at the SOAR telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile (CTIO).