How does a refracting telescope work?
TrueTeargem asked:
How is it, exactly, that a refracting telescope work when comparing with light? Doing a project in class and need to know, pronto!
This entry was posted
on Thursday, September 24th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Astronomy & Space.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
How is it, exactly, that a refracting telescope work when comparing with light? Doing a project in class and need to know, pronto!
September 24th, 2009 at 10:07 am
It uses two lenses with different magnifications. The more powerful one is the eyepiece and the less powerful one is the objective. To get the power of the telescope, you divide the power of the eyepiece by the power of the objective lens. Surveyor
September 27th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Glass makes light slow down very slightly. This will make a slant or angle intersection at the air-to-glass boundary of a telescope lens result in “refraction”. Light beams will bend.
If you make a lens with a positive curve, or convex, then light striking anywhere but the very center of the lens will bend toward the center of the beam. This is called focusing. Depending upon the steepness of the curve on the lens, the focus can be far or near to the lens.
A telescope works with two lenses or sets of lenses. The front, or objective or primary lens gathers the light into a small image of distant objects at the focus. The back, or eyepiece lens magnifies the image so the eye can see an enlarged view of a distant object. starryskyn
September 30th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Refraction is the bending of any wave. In this case it is light waves that a telescope refracts.
A magnifying glass uses light refraction to enlarge an image. A refracting telescope uses the same type of lens. Usually one large lens at the front which is called the Objective lens. The larger the objective lens the brighter the image will be because it can gather more light. Just like the pupil in your eye widens when it is dark. There is another lens group at the aye piece where the image can be focused. As the image comes through the objective lens it is turned upside down, some telescopes have a lens in the eye piece group that corrects this. Telescopes are usually classified by the diameter of the objective lens and the focal length. For example An average amateur scope would be 60×700 mm. This would be a 60mm objective lens and a focal length of 700mm. The longer the focal length the higher the magnification. The other type of optical telescope is the reflector. This uses curved mirrors to bend the light and refracting lenses in the eye piece Paul UK
October 1st, 2009 at 12:38 am
The lens at the front focuses the light, forming a “real image”. The eyepiece is a magnifying glass that makes the virtual image look bigger. iridflare