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By: Ikedi Ani-okoye.

Introduction to telescopes

Telescopes are devices that are endowed with magnifiers to allow you to see things magnified with a clear view. Telescopes are commonly used in science or its branches, particularly astronomy and physics.

How Telescopes work

Two lenses are installed in a telescope. This makes viewing a distant object possible. Each of the lenses has a function. The objective lens, or the primary mirror, collects the illumination radiated by the object viewed and makes it readily available in a certain focus point. The eyepiece lens picks up the vivid light from the focus point and spreads it to the retina so that viewing becomes possible.

History of telescopes

A telescope was invented in the beginning of 1600. Galileo Galilei used a telescope since 1609. Later in the end of 1600 Isaac Newton developed a mirror telescope. In the end of 1800 photographing equipment were connected with telescopes, which started a new era in astronomy. Various technological innovations were born in the beginning of 1900, but the real growth of astronomy started in the end of 1960 because of computer aided systems.

The two types of telescope lense

There are two types of optical telescopes, namely refractors (dioptrics) and reflectors (catoptrics). Refractors use lenses whereas reflectors use mirrors. The basic idea of an optical telescope is to gather and focus light mainly from the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Refractors behave much as camera objectives, whereas reflectors create the image in the focal point of the telescope. There are various combinations and configurations of the telescopes, such as Newton and Cassegrain telescopes.

How Telescope got its name

The name "telescope" was invented by Galileo Galilei in 1611. In Greek "tele" = far, "scopein" = to look or see, "teleskopos" = far-seeing [Wikipedia]. The name "telescopes" actually covers more devices than just optical reflectors and refractors. Optical telescopes, radio telescopes, and X-ray and gamma-ray telescopes all belong under the name "telescopes".

CONCLUSION

largest radio telescope array in use today is called global VLBI and involves connecting the VLBA and the European VLBI network (EVN) with telescopes in Australia and several other countries. This gives a telescope the diameter of the planet Earth. At one point it also included the Japanese satellite Halca making a radio telescope effectively three times the diameter of the Earth.