Techniques of Observational

Astronomy
AST3722C
Basic Telescope Optics
The four basic forms of telescope optics are shown in the figure below. Each of these has
an objective that collects the light, bringing it to a focus.

Refracting telescope
An objective lens brings starlight to a focus. Subject to chromatic aberration
caused by dispersion in the glass of the objective. Chromatic aberration can be
compensated with a lens of several elements of differing materials.
Prime focus reflecting telescope
A (typically) parabolic objective or primary mirror reflects light back to a detector
(camera or other device) at the prime focus. Telescopes with only reflecting optics
are not subject to chromatic aberration

Newtonian reflecting telescope

A (typically) parabolic primary mirror reflects light to a flat secondary mirror and
thence to the focus. The obstruction of the light beam caused by the secondary
mirror is typically less than 10% of the total incoming light.
Cassegrain reflecting telescope
A parabolic primary reflects light to a hyperbolic secondary mirror and thence to
the focus through a hole in the primary mirror. The secondary mirror has a
magnification factor m yielding an effective focal length that is m times the focal
length of the primary mirror. This allows a much shorter overall telescope tube
length than for the other types of telescopes for the same effective focal length.

Objective Mirror
Spherical
The simplest (and easiest to make) objective mirror for a telescope is concave and
spherical in cross section. For paraxial rays a spherical mirror is quite adequate. For ray
further from the axis, however, spherical aberration limits the sharpness of images that
can be formed.

Parabolic
A parabolic cross section fully corrects spherical aberration and parabolic mirrors are
common in small and moderate aperature telescopes. A parabolic mirror does introduce
other aberrations (coma, astigmatism, distortion, and curvature of field) and large modern
telescopes generally have more complex surface figures to minimize specific aberrations.

More Variations

While the Gregorian optical system is seldom used (it requires a longer tube than the
Cassegrain), the Nasmyth and Coud optical system are common, especially on large
modern telescopes. Telescopes such as the Gran Telescopio Canarias typically have
several Nasmyth and bent (or folded) Cassegrain instrument stations.
Schmidt and Maksutoff optical systems use a spherical primary mirror (and hence no
aberrations other than spherical) and correct the spherical aberration with a lens (a
complex thin lens in the case of the Schmidt, a thick meniscus lens for the Maksutoff).
These optical systems can have very wide fields of view.

GTC Optical System

Light gathering Power:

Each of the telescopes shown earlier has the same aperture D and hence the same light
of the objective. For unresolved
gathering power, which is proportional to the area
objects such as stars the speed of a telescope is proportional to its light gathering power.

F-ratio
The "f-ratio" of a telescope or camera is given by the ratio of the focal length to the
aperture and is therefore defined as
.
For telescopes of the same aperture D the size of the image (see image scale) depends on
the focal length. Doubling the focal length (and hence the f-ratio) doubles the linear size
of an extended image and therefore the light is spread over four times the area. Thus the
speed of a telescope for imaging extended objects is inversely proportional to the square
of the f-ratio.

Image scale

If it is the image in the focal plane that is of interest (as is the case when a CCD camera is
the detector) then it is image scale rather than magnification that must be calculated. The
where is in
linear size of an image d of an object of angular size is
radians. Image scale in mm per arc-second is
if F is in meters. For a 46 cm
f/10.5 telescope this works out to s= 0.023 mm/arc-second which gives an inverse scale
of 43 arc-seconds per mm.

Limit of Resolution
Diffraction by a circular aperture (such as a telescope objective) results in point source
being imaged as a central maximum surrounded by circular rings. Rayleigh's criterion
says that the limit of resolution of a telescope when looking at a double star is given by
radians (about 4.56/D arc-seconds in the visible if D is in inches). At this
limit the maximum of the diffraction pattern of one star will fall on the first minimum of
the other star.

Magnification with eyepiece

The magnification of a telescope is only useful for extended objects (e.g. the moon,
planets, nebulae, galaxies), not unresolved objects such as stars (though magnification
does apply to the angular separation of two stars). It is most easily calculated from the
ratio of the effective focal length of the telescope to the focal length of the eyepiece (m =
Fscope /feyepiece ). Typical eyepieces are 25 mm, 12.5 mm, and 6 mm. With a telescope
of 1 meter focal length these eyepieces would give magnifications of about x40, x80, and
x170 power. This means that objects such as the moon would appear 40, 80, or 170 larger
in diameter (and hence they would appear to be 40, 80, or 170 times closer).
Minimum and Maximum Useful Magnification
The pupil of a typical human eye has an opening about 5mm in diameter in subdued
daylight. The pupil may contract to as little as 2.5 mm in bright light, and it may open to
8 mm when the eye is dark adapted. Magnifications smaller than values equal to the
telescope's diameter in cm. will result in a bundle of light larger than the pupil, thus
loosing image brightness. Magnifications larger than about 10 times the aperture in cm.
will result in a bundle so small that the image quality will suffer. Example: The RHO 46
cm. scope can use magnifications between about 50x and 500x to good effect. Since the
focal length is about 480 cm., thus means eyepieces of about 10 mm (480x) and 100 mm
(48 x). Note that eyepieces are generally not available with focal lengths longer than
about 50 mm (100x with the 46 cmm. telescope).

Field of View
In addition to magnification the field of view of an eyepiece is important. The field of
view is a function of the optics of the eyepiece itself and its magnification which is a
function of the telescope focal length. Typical eyepieces have field of view ranging from
40 to 65 or more. The intrinsic eyepiece FOV must then be divided by the
magnification to get the effective field of view at the telescope. A 25 mm eyepiece on a 1

meter focal length telescope has a magnification of x40. This will yield a 1 field of view
if the eyepiece has a 40 intrinsic field of view
This page is maintained by John P. Oliver; write me at oliver@astro.ufl.edu
This material is being made available to you subject to a variety of caveats.
This page was last edited October 10, 2002 12:36 PM