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A Buyer’s and User’s Guide to Astronomical Telescopes & BinocularsRefracting Telescopes

A Buyer’s and User’s Guide to Astronomical Telescopes & Binoculars: Refracting Telescopes [The earliest of telescopes was the refracting or lens type. Initial versions used a single objective lens to collect and focus the image and a simple eyepiece to magnify it. Single lenses by their very nature have a number of optical shortcomings, chief among these being chromatic (or color) aberration. This results in light of different colors coming to focus at different points, producing image-degrading prismatic haloes appearing around the Moon, planets, and brighter stars. Another serious problem is that of spherical aberration — the inability of a single lens to bring all light rays to the same focus. However, as focal length increases, these aberrations tend to decrease. Attempting to take advantage of this, telescopes became ever longer, reaching unwieldy lengths of up to more than 200 feet in one case! (Galileo made his historic discoveries using small, primitive refractors. And while he did not invent the telescope itself, he’s credited with being the first person to apply it to celestial observation — and to publish what he saw.)] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Buyer’s and User’s Guide to Astronomical Telescopes & BinocularsRefracting Telescopes

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Publisher
Springer London
Copyright
© Springer-Verlag London Limited 2007
ISBN
978-1-84628-439-7
Pages
27 –33
DOI
10.1007/978-1-84628-707-7_4
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[The earliest of telescopes was the refracting or lens type. Initial versions used a single objective lens to collect and focus the image and a simple eyepiece to magnify it. Single lenses by their very nature have a number of optical shortcomings, chief among these being chromatic (or color) aberration. This results in light of different colors coming to focus at different points, producing image-degrading prismatic haloes appearing around the Moon, planets, and brighter stars. Another serious problem is that of spherical aberration — the inability of a single lens to bring all light rays to the same focus. However, as focal length increases, these aberrations tend to decrease. Attempting to take advantage of this, telescopes became ever longer, reaching unwieldy lengths of up to more than 200 feet in one case! (Galileo made his historic discoveries using small, primitive refractors. And while he did not invent the telescope itself, he’s credited with being the first person to apply it to celestial observation — and to publish what he saw.)]

Published: Jan 1, 2007

Keywords: Black Ring; Spherical Aberration; Bright Star; Single Lens; Lens Type

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