What Is a Refractor Telescope?
Refractor telescopes use lenses (not mirrors) at the top of the telescope to focus light rays into an eyepiece at the bottom of the telescope. It is the same design used in binoculars and most spotting scopes (daytime telescopes). See our Spotting Scopes are for Spotting Scope Selections The refractor uses a lens that is placed in the front of the tube. The light passes through the lens and is deflected to a focal point where the image is formed. The lens telescope is a simple, sound and optical (almost) perfect instrument.
A refractor telescope, is one that and uses a glass lens to gather light instead of mirrors, which are used in reflector telescopes. This lens, also known as an objective, is arguably the most important part of the telescope since its quality will determine the quality of the overall magnification, and of the resulting viewable image. Most people who have a telescope stored in the attic will find that it is a refractor telescope. Refractor telescopes are smaller than reflectors, because they are able to focus more light onto a smaller area. This size advantage makes them easier to store and transport than the much larger reflector. This makes them popular to sell in department stores and the like. A refractor telescope works by bending, i.e. refracting, light. A curved glass objective is found in one end of the telescope. Light from a viewed object passes into the objective, and is bent into the tube of the telescope. The light is ultimately reflected upwards by a mirror at the other e
A refractor telescope is the classic design most people think of when they think of telescopes. It has a lens (or two) at the top of the telescope which focuses light through a hollow tube. You look through an eyepiece at the bottom of the telescope. Refractors are one type of telescope design, but we also have many reflector telescopes as well.
An easy explanation for beginners. The Refractor telescope is the first type of telescope invented. In a nutshell it is simply two lenses inside a tube. The large lens (on the right) is the light gathering lens. This lens is called the objective lens. The bigger this lens is the better the telescope because the more light it will gather and the deeper into space you will see. It also will enable you to magnify things larger and get a closer look at objects in the night sky. The small lens (on the left) is the magnifying lens. This lens determines the magnification of the telescope. With most modern telescopes this lens is replaceable and these replacements are called “eyepieces”. By putting in a different eyepieces you will change the magnification. One eyepiece lets say will be a 50X magnification and another could be a 100X magnification. Of course there are many different magnifications that you could use but every telescope has its limits. You couldn’t magnify things a million time
The refractor telescope uses lenses for astronomical observations and is also called a “lens telescope” or “refractor”. The refractor is the first optical instrument that was used for astronomical observations by Galileo around 1600. Picture 3: A refractor telescope (also called a lens telescope) The refractor uses a lens that is placed in the front of the tube. The light passes through the lens and is deflected to a focal point where the image is formed. The lens telescope is a simple, sound and optical (almost) perfect instrument. A well-built lens telescope has, in fact, only 1 true optical error, which is indicated by the term “Chromatic aberration”. Chromatic aberration, also known as “purple fringing”, is caused because a single lens is not capable to focus all colours in the optical spectrum at the same time. In short, this means that for example one will see a sep arate blue, a red and a green colour of the moon. Practically this means that if one wants to focus on the blue col
