![]() The two main types of telescope are reflectors and refractors, they both follow the same three steps shown below to deliver their night sky images, but they use fundamentally different processes to achieve it.Ī third design, the Catadioptric (cat), or hybrid, uses a combination of mirror and lens to deliver some advantages in size. What Are The Different Types of Telescope? If you want more magnification, get a bigger aperture. To use higher magnification requires more light, so the same rule still applies. It’s actually the job of a telescope’s eyepiece to magnify the image collected by the scope. If you take away nothing else from this article, remember this: first decide which type of scope is for you (see below) and then get the biggest objective diameter you can afford.Įverything else in a telescope is secondary to its light-gathering power, especially magnification, which only becomes relevant after the light is gathered. For example, an 8″ telescope pulls in about 77% more light than one with a 6″ opening. This means a small increase in objective size gives a big increase in light gathering power. The amount of light an objective collects grows based on a known formula which says that doubling the size of the telescope’s objective (aperture) increases its light-gathering power four-fold. How Much More Light Does a Bigger Telescope Collect? The bigger your telescope’s aperture, the more light is collected and the fainter the objects we can see with it. The number one thing any telescope does to improve night sky observing is gather (significantly) more light than our eyes. Telescopes, however, are designed to collect light. ![]() That faint light is such a small proportion of everything our eyes take in that most objects are invisible to us, and those we can see – even the bright and nearby ones like mars – have no detail that we can make out. Objects in space, from planets to galaxies, are so far away that only a tiny amount of the light the produce reaches us on Earth. Our pupils dilate in the dark to gather in more light, but that is in no way enough for astronomy. Light comes in through our pupils, which are around 5mm – 7mm in diameter, so their light gathering power is poor. What Telescopes DoĬompared to a telescope, our eyes are puny for collecting light! It’s the size of this aperture which we need to pay most attention to. ![]() Telescopes are effective because they have a huge pupil (compared to the ones in your eyes). When buying a telescope, the amount of magnification it can offer is irrelevant! This, sadly, leads unsuspecting shoppers down the wrong path: If you’ve ever bought or shopped for a telescope, particularly a cheap or low-end one, you’ll have seen that the advertising often shouts about how much magnification the scope can deliver. Anything you point a telescope at is magnified, but they need an eyepiece to do it and – as you’ll soon see – it is not the most important thing they do. Telescopes do magnify planets, and galaxies, stars and nebulae. So, in this article, we share all the information you need to understand why telescopes work so much better than your eyes. There is much more detail to workings of a telescope than this simple summary though. Since they collect so much light, we can see objects with them that are invisible to the naked eye. Telescopes work by collecting as much light as possible through a large aperture, much more than our eyes. ![]() Understanding how telescopes work is key for both getting the best performance from the one you own and deciding what you want from a new one. ![]()
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