Sunspots

Galileo observed the Sun through his telescope and saw that the
Sun had dark patches on it that we now call sunspots (he
eventually went blind, perhaps from damage suffered by
looking at the Sun with his telescope). Furthermore, he
observed motion of the sunspots indicating that the Sun was
rotating on an axis. These "blemishes" on the Sun were
contrary to the doctrine of an unchanging perfect substance in
the heavens, and the rotation of the Sun made it less strange that the Earth might
rotate on an axis too, as required in the Copernican model. Both represented new
facts that were unknown to Aristotle and Ptolemy.

The Moons of Jupiter

Galileo observed 4 points of light that changed

their positions with time around the planet
Jupiter. He concluded that these were objects in
orbit around Jupiter. Indeed, they were the 4
brightest moons of Jupiter, which are now
commonly called the Galilean moons (Galileo
himself called them the Medicea Siderea---the
``Medician Stars''). Here is an animation based
on actual observations of the motion of these
moons around Jupiter.

These observations again showed that there were new things in the heavens that
Aristotle and Ptolemy had known nothing about. Furthermore, they
demonstrated that a planet could have moons circling it that would not be left
behind as the planet moved around its orbit. One of the arguments against the
Copernican system (and the ORIGINAL heliocentric idea of Aristarchus) had
been that if the moon were in orbit around the Earth and the Earth in orbit
around the Sun, the Earth would leave the Moon behind as it moved around its
orbit.

The Phases of Venus

Galileo used his telescope to show that Venus went through a complete set
of phases, just like the Moon. This observation was among the most important in
human history, for it provided the first conclusive observational proof that was
consistent with the Copernican system but not the Ptolemaic system.
The crucial point is the empirical fact that Venus is never very far from the Sun
in our sky. Thus, as the following diagrams indicate, in the Ptolemaic system
Venus should always be in crescent phase as viewed from the Earth because as it
moves around its epicycle it can never be far from the direction of the sun (which
lies beyond it), but in the Copernican system Venus should exhibit a complete set
of phases over time as viewed from the Earth because it is illuminated from the
center of its orbit.