There are two main types of
telescopes: refractor telescopes that use glass lenses and
reflector telescopes that use mirrors. Both types of
telescopes work by collecting more light than your eye and
then stretching out the collected light to form a larger
image. The quality of the image produced by the telescope
depends on how well the telescope collect and magnify the
light.
The Hubble Space Telescope
contains a primary and secondary mirror made of glass and
coated with thin layers of pure aluminum and magnesium
fluoride. The mirrors reflect ultraviolet, infra-red and
visible light. The Hubble Space Telescope is essentially a
long tube that contains mirrors that focus the light onto
sensors that act as the eyes of the telescope. The Hubble
was built over eight years and now provides scientists with
50 times more sensitivity and 10 times better resolution the
any ground based telescope. Ground based telescopes can only
gather light after the atmosphere has distorted it. The
resulting images are fuzzy. Since the Hubble is in orbit it
does not suffer from this impairment. The telescope does
have limitations. The sensitive components in the eye of the
telescope would be damaged if used to observe the sun or
other bright objects.
Links:
Spacewatch Telescope Detects Its First Asteroids
How Hubble Space Telescope Works
How Telescopes Work
