It is much easier to make a large, near-perfect mirror than to make a large, near-perfect lens.
So the mirror just has to have the right curved shape. Light is concentrated by bouncing off of the mirror. A bigger mirror does not also have to be thicker. Unlike a lens, a mirror can be very thin. It would be like looking through a dirty window.Ī telescope that uses mirrors is called a reflecting telescope. Any flaws in the lens will change the image. Also, as they get thicker the glass stops more of the light passing through them.īecause the light is passing through the lens, the surface of the lens has to be extremely smooth. Heavy lenses are hard to make and difficult to hold in the right place. If you want to see far away, you need a big powerful lens. People with especially poor eyesight need thick lenses in their glasses. In a telescope, it makes faraway things seem closer.Ī simple refracting telescope uses lenses to make images bigger and more visible. In eyeglasses, this makes things less blurry. It’s hard to make a perfect mirror, but it’s even harder to make a perfect lens.Ī telescope made with lenses is called a refracting telescope.Ī lens, just like in eyeglasses, bends light passing through it. If they do have such problems, the image gets warped or blurry and is difficult to see. They can’t have any spots, scratches or other flaws. That means the mirrors and lenses have to be just the right shape to concentrate the light. The optics of a telescope must be almost perfect. That light is what we see when we look into the telescope. Light is then concentrated by the shape of the optics. The bigger the mirrors or lenses, the more light the telescope can gather. To do that, the optics-be they mirrors or lenses-have to be really big. The mirrors or lenses in a telescope are called the “optics.” Really powerful telescopes can see very dim things and things that are really far away. So why do we use mirrors today? Because mirrors are lighter, and they are easier than lenses to make perfectly smooth. The first telescopes focused light by using pieces of curved, clear glass, called lenses. Most telescopes, and all large telescopes, work by using curved mirrors to gather and focus light from the night sky. Turn on Observatory Drive and park.A telescope is a tool that astronomers use to see faraway objects. You will see the equine track downhill to your right and the observatory dome uphill to your left. Olympia turns sharply to the left and uphill. Turn on Observatory Drive and park.įrom Moscow on Hwy 270, turn right on Stadium Way, then immediately right on Olympia. Turn left on Stadium Way, then the first right turn onto Olympia. Turn right and follow Hwy 270 east to the University. Follow Hwy 27, which becomes Grand Avenue, until you reach the downtown area. Turn on Observatory Drive and park.įrom Lewiston, take Hwy 195 north to Pullman.
Hwy 270 jogs through downtown and continues to the University. From Spokane, take Hwy 195 south to Pullman.
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