Find Out About Reflecting and Refracting Telescopes

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Find Out About Reflecting and Refracting Telescopes

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed

Reflecting Telescopes are strategic tools for exploring physical objects in the night sky and the principal part of any telescope is the objective. The objective is what allows the light into the telescope enabling you to visualise the projected images from the heavenly objects you are observing. Telescopes with wider objective lenses let more light in and this means a cleaner image for the viewer.

The 2 key types of telescopes are reflecting telescopes and refracting telescopes. These are essentially quite similar in overall design apart from for the manner in which they collect light.

The Primary Difference Between Refracting and Reflecting Telescopes

The objective lens in refracting telescopes is a piece of glass that is located close to the front of the telescope. The objective directs the light that it gathers and refracts, or deflects, it to send it to the eyepiece, which in turn enhaces the image. Refracting telescope technology is also usedin other equipment like binoculars, rifle scopes and spyglasses.

By comparison, reflecting telescopes are different because the objective lens is a mirror at the bottom end of the telescope instead of a glass lens at the front end. The mirror in a reflecting telescope has a dished shape, or a bowl like shape, which permits it to capture the light in the center of the mirror and transmit it as one stream of light towards the eyepiece so the image can be seen by the observer.

Benefits of Using a Reflecting Telescope

Reflecting telescopes are desired by many for various reasons. A key reason is less distortion with a reflecting telescope than with a refracting telescope since the mirror is able to gather and reflect all wavelengths of color consistently. The use of the mirrors instead of glass lenses reflecting telescopes less expensive than refracting telescopes.

When mirrors are used instead of glass lenses, the telescope can be designed much larger to allow for the supports for the mirror to be located on the posterior of the telescope. The larger the mirror that is used, the more light that is reflected and the better and clearer the image will be.

Specific Issues with the Reflecting Telescope

Reflecting telescopes can have their own issues and problems as well. One problem can simply be the size of reflecting telescopes. As larger and larger mirrors are used, the telescopes have to grow in size to fit the mirrors inside. While you get better results with the larger reflecting telescopes, they are not very portable and it can be awkward finding a a convenient place to keep them when you are not using them.

An additional consideration or problem is that reflecting telescopes may demand to have the mirrors from time to time to support them working perfectly and to maximize the light that is captured.

Many of the best-selling telescope brands provide both refracting and reflecting style telescopes for the recreational explorer.

Almost all of the better telescopes used in research are reflectors. Reflecting telescopes come in many design variations and may utilize complementary optic elements to improve the image quality or place the image in a mechanically advantageous position. Since reflecting telescopes use mirrors, the design is sometimes referred to as a catatropic telescope.

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