MadSci Network: Astronomy
Query:

Re: Could you tell me about any recent developments of the telescope?

Date: Mon Apr 22 10:39:34 2002
Posted By: Ken Rines, Grad student, Astronomy, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Area of science: Astronomy
ID: 1019174154.As
Message:

The basic principle of most telescopes has changed surprisingly little since Galileo's time. The fundamental idea is to focus light from a large area onto a smaller area called the focus plane. You can do this with lenses (these are called refracting telescopes) or with mirrors (these are called reflecting telescopes). With an amateur telescope, you use your eye to detect the light, but professional telescopes use electronic instruments like digital cameras, which are more efficient and more sensitive than our eyes. X-ray telescopes look quite different from optical telescopes because it's very difficult to reflect X-ray light, but the basic principle is the same: focusing light from a large area to a smaller one. At radio wavelengths, you can have relatively large imperfections in the mirror without distorting the image, so the largest telescope in the world is the Arecibo telescope, which has a radio "mirror" 1000 feet across!


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