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Telescopes with Optical Technology

According to the definition of an optical telescope, it is a telescope that gathers and focuses on the light coming from the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.

The use of an optical telescope allows the viewer to have direct image (magnified image) of a far object; celestial object. You can observe the sky using this optical telescope. There are three main types of these optical telescopes, namely:

1. Reflectors: These telescopes uses mirrors to gather and focus the light coming from a far object
2. Refractors: Unlike reflectors, refractors use lenses instead of mirrors to gather and focus the light to view a celestial object.
3. Combined or Hybrid Mirror-Lens System: These optical telescopes use both mirror and lenses to view far objects.

The principle idea behind the working of an optical telescope is that any light-gathering element like a lens or a mirror focuses the gathered light to a certain focal point where the telescope form a real image of the far distant object.

After then, as we know that almost all of the telescopes today come with attached cameras, these real images can be captured with the help of the camera being attached with the telescope. Apart from capturing the image with the camera, these images can be directly viewed as well with the help of the eyepiece.

Sometime you notice that some telescopes makes an inverted image of the distant objects and you wonder why it does so. This is because of the fact that those telescopes use two convex lenses.

The two convex lenses cause the image to get inverted. This problem is resolved by the use of a prism or a relay that are placed between the image of the object and the eyepiece.

The prism or the relay acts as an inverter and they invert the inverted image made by two convex lenses; hence inverting the inverted image make a real image of the object that is in upright position.

We all know that telescope technologies have evolved with the passage of time and previous telescopes had many loopholes like blurred image, bright circles around objects etc.

With the help of advanced technologies, these problems are now rectified. Today all of us can have crystal clear view, without any distortion, of our neighbouring celestial objects in the sky.

Most of the research based telescopes today are reflectors; the one that uses mirrors to gather light from far distant objects. Reflectors provide the best possible image of the celestial objects with almost no imperfections or distortions which is vital for the studies of these objects by astronomers.

The images provided by reflectors are much better than those provided by refractors because reflectors work in a wider spectrum; allowing more light coming from target objects.

There are many varieties of optical telescopes available today. These telescopes are beneficial for both professionals and novice users. You can find lots of information on these optical telescopes through various resources like newspapers, magazines etc.