Reflecting Telescopes

One of the first reflecting telescopes was developed by Sir Isaac Newton in 1680. Sir Newton was looking for a better way to view the heavans...

While there were refracting telescopes available, they had their difficulties. Refracted light splits into its various wavelengths or colors producing a rainbow effect when going through the tube of a refracting telescope at that time. This was a real problem as all the images were surrounded by a rainbow of color.

Isaac Newton concluded that it was impossible to refract light without this occurring. The mathematical genuis's "newtonian reflecting telescope" was followed up by John Hadley who in 1722, developed a telescope that used parabolic mirrors.

The reflecting telescope uses a curved mirror instead of a lens to focus the light and having a wider field of view than refracting telescopes as well as greater focal ratios and magnification. This means they are excellent for viewing distant nebulae and galaxies as well as nearby star clusters and comets.

They are fairly easy and cheap to make a simple reflecting telescope at home. It is essential that the mirrors are squeaky clean and in a perfect line to get a decent picture. If a mirror is ground wrong, it will distort the image. These scopes have huge light focusing ability and you will be able to get fantastic views of distant objects and take pictures of what you can see.

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