How does a reflecting telescope work kids

So why do we use mirrors today? Because mirrors are lighter, and they are easier than lenses to make perfectly smooth. 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. If they do have such problems, the image gets warped or blurry and is difficult to see. 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. 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. Refracting telescopes, also known as dioptric scope, solely use a lens to create images.

A refracting telescope consists of 2 lenses. One is at the eyepiece and the other is the objective lens. The objective lens receives light ray from the source and focuses them into a single point. The image is formed at the focal point the point where the light rays are focused. After that, the eyepiece lens gathers the refracted lights and transmits them to the eye.

The eyepiece lens is responsible for the magnification. It determines what the magnification will me. Objective Lens: Among the 2 lenses, the larger one is the objective lens. The objective lens sits at the front of the telescope and is responsible for gathering lights. The larger the objective lens is, the more light it can collect. As a result, the image will be crisper and sharper.

Eyepiece Lens: The eyepiece lens is responsible for the magnification of the telescope. With telescopes, you can easily change the magnification by changing the eyepiece. With the same telescope, one eyepiece can offer 50x magnification whereas another can offer x. Refractive telescope has its limit. In this post of mine, I have explained how magnification is measured, how to calculate the limit of your telescope and many other technical parameters that are fundamental for using any type of telescope.

As I have mentioned before, refracting telescopes have 2 types of lenses: objective lens and the eyepiece lens. The objective lens gathers light from the object we want to see suppose the Moon. Then it bends the light rays and focuses them into a single point. This point is known as the focal point. The focal point is extremely important because this is the point where the image is formed. In this case, the image of the Moon will be formed at the focal point.

Then light rays from the focal point reach the eyepiece lens. The eyepiece lens magnifies the image formed at the focal point. And when it comes to a reflecting telescope, you might want to know the whole thing clearly and then your next step is probably to know about how a reflecting telescope works. Stay with us. You will get it.

Just a few specific things occur inside of it. Today this article will introduce you to those specific things. You will definitely find it interesting and enjoyable. So first learn and then enjoy your observation journey. A reflecting telescope is an optical instrument designed by two mirrors that are used to focus on the celestial objects. To be more specific, a reflecting telescope is an optical telescope that uses mirrors where lights are reflected at various angles through the optical tube.

Before knowing the working process of a reflecting telescope, we would like to describe the design of it so that you can get a clear idea and understand the process given in the latter section. There are two mirrors in a reflecting telescope. The primary mirror and the secondary mirror. The primary mirror is angled towards the secondary mirror.

These mirrors are curved for a very specific reason. When the light rays of a celestial object come, they come in a parallel shape. But the curved shape of the mirror gathers the rays into a single point at the secondary mirror. Otherwise, you won't be able to observe an image. There is also an eyepiece directed to the secondary mirror. This eyepiece magnifies the image of the distant object and makes it visible. Now let's know how a reflecting telescope works. A reflecting telescope works by the two curved mirrors primary and secondary that are used to focus the object.

These mirrors gather light and reflect the targeted image. Let's know the detailed process below. After knowing about how a reflecting telescope works, you might want to know how you can focus on it.