As glassmaking became more refined and lenses were made of greater quality, someone wondered what would happen if you placed two lenses in a row. The result of the experiment eventually became the refracting telescope...

The exact date of the building of the first refractor telescope is not known, but there is strong documentary evidence for the presence of refracting telescopes in England as early as the Sixteenth Century, though they did not become widespread in Europe until the Seventeenth in the Netherlands. Hans Lipperhey (whose patent was rejected as being too easy to copy) and Zacharias Janssen of the Netherlands, both claim the invention of the revolutionary device that caused a whole new world view and spread all over Europe.

Whoever the inventor, the original telescope consisted of both a convex and concave lens so the image could be viewed the right way up. In 1909, Galileo refined the design by putting distance between the two lenses, refining the image and reducing the rainbow effect of refracting light that had previously surrounded distant objects. Galileo continued to refine the telescope improving the magnification from a power of three to a power of thirty-three. In 1910 he used the telescope to discover the moons of Jupiter, sunspots and the craters, hills and valleys of the moon. His observations helped to challenge the view that the Earth is the center of the universe.

Today telescopes that can match and improve on the observations of Galileo are widely available. Created of a long tube of wood or metal with a lens at both ends and an eyepiece, the tube keeps the lenses free from dust, debris and water. The two lenses work in the same way as the original, focusing and refracting the light that is then magnified by the eyepiece producing a clear image.

Modern telescopes are expensive and have a high resolution. They are able to see in great detail binary stars and planets as well as a large number of other objects, though they are less useful for looking at very large distant objects such as nebulae and galaxies.

Video About How to Build a Refracting Telescope: Astronomy

---

Buy Land on the Moon from The Lunar Registry makes a great gift! Includes personalized deed, actual satellite property photo and a detailed information sheet. Please click here to learn more!

News About Refracting Telescopes

Observatory to open in Afton - Woodbury Bulletin 14 Jul 2010 at 11:04am

Observatory to open in Afton
Woodbury Bulletin
It just so happened that the MAS received the refracting telescope from an anonymous donor; it came with the stipulation that an observatory had to be built ...



Astro Bob blog: In the Ring, we see our future - Duluth News Tribune 17 Jul 2010 at 12:54pm

Astro Bob blog: In the Ring, we see our future
Duluth News Tribune
It was discovered in 1779 by French astronomer Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix with a 2.5-inch refracting telescope while he was searching for a comet. ...

and more »

Weekend in Lake Geneva, Wis. - Atlanta Journal Constitution 9 Jul 2010 at 2:41pm

Weekend in Lake Geneva, Wis.
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Experience: The Yerkes Observatory, built in 1898 on Williams Bay, holds one of the world's largest refracting telescopes and offers free 45-minute public ...



Mauna Kea scopes aid study of quasars - Honolulu Star-Advertiser 17 Jul 2010 at 7:38am

Mauna Kea scopes aid study of quasars
Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Instead of seeing a single image of the distant galaxy, telescopes on Earth see the refracted light as two or more magnified images of the background galaxy ...



Sensing and Monitoring Volcanic Ash for Air Travel Safety Using LabVIEW and P... 20 Jul 2010 at 10:26am

Product Design & Development
Sensing and Monitoring Volcanic Ash for Air Travel Safety Using LabVIEW and PXI
Product Design & Development
... active remote sensing, which consist of a transmitter (laser), receiver (telescope or refracting telescope), and signal acquisition hardware (Figure 2). ...



Refracting Telescopes

Copyright © About Telescopes | Privacy Policy | Disclosure Policy