What is the significance of a telescope lens?
xm90 asked:
I’m not doing a science paper on this or anything, just have to write how I would feel if I were the lens in Galileo’s telescope (I know, pointless). I just need some basic things. Don’t have to go all into it.
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I’m not doing a science paper on this or anything, just have to write how I would feel if I were the lens in Galileo’s telescope (I know, pointless). I just need some basic things. Don’t have to go all into it.
February 1st, 2009 at 4:30 am
Its an inatamite object. Beyond that it magnifies things so they can be seen w more clarity.
You would feel nothing,
Yet see all that was put b4u
hope this helps
February 3rd, 2009 at 11:19 am
You were the original telescope lens used for astronomy. The first of a long line of devices that extended man’s senses.
February 6th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
I think it’s actually a pretty cool assignment. Just imagine all the stuff Galileo could see because of you. He discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter and used that observation to support the theory that the earth revolves around the sun. And then he got in deep doo doo with the Catholic church. Of course it wasn’t actually your fault You just showed him what was there, you didn’t tell him what to do with the information.
February 7th, 2009 at 11:03 am
A lens is used to magnify an objects ligt passing through it, it’s the most essential somponnent in a telescope!
February 10th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
I like the 3rd answer. There is a marvelous cartoon that was on the Warner Bros. Cartoon show in which a candle flame “helps” Jefferson work through the night writing the Declaration of Independence. Gets blown around, sympathizes with Tom’s efforts, “reads” what he has written.
Consider the lens coming out of it protective case and being set up - does he only look at sky or is he located to look out to sea or just at/into other buildings? In setting up the telescope, does he leave it up and sometimes walk away - does the lens see something he is missing and try to “call” him.
February 11th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
I also think it’s a cool assignment. The lens on a refractor telescope (which is the type of scope that Galileo made) focuses the light from the front of the scope to a smaller lens at the back of the scope that in turn focuses the image for your eye. The lens in Galileo’s scope would have started by focusing the image of distant merchant ships as they approached at the horizon. This was a real benefit to merchants in Venice, because then they had advance notice that their goods were about to arrive.
The same scope would have been used to demonstrate to skeptics that there were wonderful things to see in the sky - like the 4 largest moons of Jupiter - that supported the ideas of Copernicus and eventually got Galileo in hot water with the church.