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There are two main types of telescopes, refracting (using a lens) and reflecting

ID: 1880107 • Letter: T

Question

There are two main types of telescopes, refracting (using a lens) and reflecting (using a mirror, as in figure i on p. 778). (Some telescopes use a mixture of the two types of elements: the light first encounters a large curved mirror, and then goes through an eyepiece that is a lens. To keep things simple, assume no eyepiece is used.) What implications would the color-dependence of focal length have for the relative merits of the two types of telescopes? Describe the case where an image is formed of a white star. You may find it helpful to draw a ray diagram.

i/A N telescope being used for visual rather than photographic observing. In real life, an eyepiece lens is normally used for additional magnification, but this simpler setup will also work.

Explanation / Answer

In optics, chromatic aberration is an effect resulting from dispersion in which there is a failure of a lens to focus all colors to the same convergence point.It occurs because lenses have different refractive indices for different wavelengths of light. The refractive index of transparent materials decreases with increasing wavelength in degrees unique to each

Chromatic aberration manifests itself as "fringes" of color along boundaries that separate dark and bright parts of the image, because each color in the optical spectrum cannot be focused at a single common point. Since the focal length f of a lens is dependent on the refractive index n, different wavelengths of light will be focused on different positions.

hence using a mirror reduces chromatic abertration as the light does njot have to pass through glass which shall have different refractive indexes for diffent wavelengths