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Astronomy 101 Section 020 Lecture 6 Optics and Telescopes

Astronomy 101 Section 020 Lecture 6 Optics and Telescopes. John T. McGraw, Professor Laurel Ladwig, Planetarium Manager. Telescopes. The fundamental purpose of any telescope is to gather more light than the eye. The second purpose of a telescope is to see finer detail.

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Astronomy 101 Section 020 Lecture 6 Optics and Telescopes

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  1. Astronomy 101Section 020Lecture 6Optics andTelescopes John T. McGraw, ProfessorLaurel Ladwig, Planetarium Manager

  2. Telescopes • The fundamental purpose of any telescope is to gather more light than the eye. • The second purpose of a telescope is to see finer detail. • The third purpose is to form an image. • Magnification is NOT a primary purpose of a telescope.

  3. Refraction of Light

  4. Magnification by a Telescope The magnification of a telescope is equal to the focal length of the objective divided by the focal length of the eyepiece

  5. Light Gathering Power The light-gathering power of a telescope is directly proportional to the area of the objective lens, which in turn is proportional to the square of the lens diameter.

  6. Why astronomers don’t use refracting telescopes - chromatic aberration • Lenses bend different colors of light through different angles, just as a prism does • As a result, different colors do not focus at the same point, and stars viewed through a telescope that uses a simple lens are surrounded by fuzzy, rainbow-colored halos • If the telescope designer carefully chooses two different kinds of glass for two lenses that make up one objective, different colors of light can be brought to a focus at the same point

  7. The theorist and the proto-observer

  8. Glass impurities, chromatic aberration, opacity to certain wavelengths, and structural difficulties make it inadvisable to build extremely large refractors. (And they make astronomers look old!)

  9. A reflecting telescope uses a mirror to concentrate incoming light at a focus • Reflecting telescopes, or reflectors, produce images by reflecting light rays to a focus point from curved mirrors. • Reflectors are not subject to most of the problems that limit the useful size of refractors.

  10. The basic reflecting telescope

  11. Reflecting Telescopes

  12. Gemini North Telescope • The 8.1-meter primary mirror • The 1.0-meter secondary mirror • The Cassegrain hole

  13. Telescope images are degraded by the blurring effects of the atmosphere and by light pollution • Angular Resolution: A telescope’s angular resolution, which indicates ability to see fine details, is limited by two key factors • Diffraction is an intrinsic property of light waves. • The blurring effects of atmospheric turbulence can be minimized by placing the telescope atop a tall mountain with very smooth air. • Blurring (astronomical “seeing”) can be dramatically reduced by the use of adaptive optics and can be eliminated entirely by placing the telescope in orbit

  14. The Very Large Telescope (VLT)

  15. An electronic device is commonly used to record the image at a telescope’s focus • Sensitive light detectors called charge-coupled devices (CCDs) are often used at a telescope’s focus to record faint images.

  16. Why use a CCD?

  17. Spectrographs record the spectra of astronomical objects A spectrograph uses a diffraction grating and lenses to form the spectrum of an astronomical object.

  18. A spectrum of a star

  19. Observation of hydrogen in the atmosphere of a star

  20. A radio telescope uses a large concave dish to reflect radio waves to a focus • Radio telescopes use large reflecting antennas or dishes to focus radio waves • Very large dishes provide reasonably sharp radio images

  21. On the Plains of San Agustin Higher resolution is achieved with interferometry techniques that link smaller dishes together.

  22. Optical and Radio Views of Saturn

  23. Telescopes in orbit around the Earth detect radiation that does not penetrate the atmosphere • The Earth’s atmosphere absorbs much of the radiation that arrives from space • The atmosphere is transparent chiefly in two wavelength ranges known as the optical window and the radio window • A few wavelengths in the near-infrared also reach the ground

  24. For observations at wavelengths to which the Earth’s atmosphere is opaque, astronomers depend on telescopes carried above the atmosphere by rockets or spacecraft

  25. The James Webb Space Telescope will replace the Hubble Space Telescope

  26. Satellite-based observatories provide new information about the universe and permit coordinated observation of the sky at all wavelengths

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