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    How Do Telescopes Work

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    chandru bharath
    Telescopes use either lenses or mirrors to gather and focus light from distant objects. Lenses were originally used but mirrors are now more common because they are lighter, easier to polish to a perfect smooth surface, and can be made much larger than lenses. The larger the mirror or lens, the more light the telescope can gather, allowing it to see faint, distant objects. Modern space telescopes use mirrors because they are lighter and better suited for use outside Earth's atmosphere.

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    How Do Telescopes Work

    Uploaded by

    chandru bharath
    69 views6 pages
    Telescopes use either lenses or mirrors to gather and focus light from distant objects. Lenses were originally used but mirrors are now more common because they are lighter, easier to polish to a perfect smooth surface, and can be made much larger than lenses. The larger the mirror or lens, the more light the telescope can gather, allowing it to see faint, distant objects. Modern space telescopes use mirrors because they are lighter and better suited for use outside Earth's atmosphere.

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    Telescopes use either lenses or mirrors to gather and focus light from distant objects. Lenses were originally used but mirrors are now more common because they are lighter, easier to polish to a perfect smooth surface, and can be made much larger than lenses. The larger the mirror or lens, the more light the telescope can gather, allowing it to see faint, distant objects. Modern space telescopes use mirrors because they are lighter and better suited for use outside Earth's atmosphere.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    69 views6 pages

    How Do Telescopes Work

    Uploaded by

    chandru bharath
    Telescopes use either lenses or mirrors to gather and focus light from distant objects. Lenses were originally used but mirrors are now more common because they are lighter, easier to polish to a perfect smooth surface, and can be made much larger than lenses. The larger the mirror or lens, the more light the telescope can gather, allowing it to see faint, distant objects. Modern space telescopes use mirrors because they are lighter and better suited for use outside Earth's atmosphere.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 6

    How Do Telescopes Work?

    The Short Answer:


    Early telescopes focused light using pieces of curved, clear glass, called
    lenses. However, most telescopes today use curved mirrors to gather light
    from the night sky. The shape of the mirror or lens in a telescope
    concentrates light. That light is what we see when we look into a telescope.

    Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
    A telescope is a tool that astronomers use to see faraway objects. Most
    telescopes, and all large telescopes, work by using curved mirrors to
    gather and focus light from the night sky.
    The first telescopes focused light by using pieces of curved, clear glass,
    called lenses. So why do we use mirrors today? Because mirrors are
    lighter, and they are easier than lenses to make perfectly smooth.
    The mirrors or lenses in a telescope are called the “optics.” Really powerful
    telescopes can see very dim things and things that are really far away. To
    do that, the optics—be they mirrors or lenses—have to be really big.
    The bigger the mirrors or lenses, the more light the telescope can gather.
    Light is then concentrated by the shape of the optics. That light is what we
    see when we look into the telescope.
    The optics of a telescope must be almost perfect. That means the mirrors
    and lenses have to be just the right shape to concentrate the light. They
    can’t have any spots, scratches or other flaws. If they do have such
    problems, the image gets warped or blurry and is difficult to see. It’s hard to
    make a perfect mirror, but it’s even harder to make a perfect lens.
    Lenses

    A telescope made with lenses is called a refracting telescope.


    A lens, just like in eyeglasses, bends light passing through it. In
    eyeglasses, this makes things less blurry. In a telescope, it makes faraway
    things seem closer.
    A simple refracting telescope uses lenses to make images bigger and more visible. Credit:
    NASA/JPL-Caltech

    People with especially poor eyesight need thick lenses in their glasses. Big,
    thick lenses are more powerful. The same is true for telescopes. If you
    want to see far away, you need a big powerful lens. Unfortunately, a big
    lens is very heavy.
    Heavy lenses are hard to make and difficult to hold in the right place. Also,
    as they get thicker the glass stops more of the light passing through them.
    Because the light is passing through the lens, the surface of the lens has to
    be extremely smooth. Any flaws in the lens will change the image. It would
    be like looking through a dirty window.
    Why Mirrors Work Better

    A telescope that uses mirrors is called a reflecting telescope.


    Unlike a lens, a mirror can be very thin. A bigger mirror does not also have
    to be thicker. Light is concentrated by bouncing off of the mirror. So the
    mirror just has to have the right curved shape.
    It is much easier to make a large, near-perfect mirror than to make a large,
    near-perfect lens. Also, since mirrors are one-sided, they are easier than
    lenses to clean and polish.
    But mirrors have their own problems. Have you ever looked into a spoon
    and noticed your reflection is upside down? The curved mirror in a
    telescope is like a spoon: It flips the image. Luckily, the solution is simple.
    We just use other mirrors to flip it back.
    A simple reflecting telescope uses mirrors to help us see faraway objects. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

    The number-one benefit of using mirrors is that they’re not heavy. Since
    they are much lighter than lenses, mirrors are a lot easier to launch into
    space.
    Space telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer
    Space Telescope have allowed us to capture views of galaxies and
    nebulas far away from our own solar system

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