Astronomy and Frontiers in Science

MODULE 03

Telescopes

Topic Overview

Key Terms
1. Observatory - is a place or building equipped and used for making observations of astronomical, meteorological,
or other natural phenomena, especially a place equipped with a powerful telescope for observing the planets and
stars

LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of the lesson, students will be able to:

1. Explain how telescope works

2. Identify the parts of a telescope
3. Identify the persons behind the invention of telescope
4. Compare refracting and reflecting telescopes
5. Create a refracting telescope at home

Learning Activities Suggested Suggested

Time to Finish Deadline

1. Take the diagnostic test 20 minutes

2. Pre-activity 10 minutes

3. Activity

4. Analysis

5. Abstraction

6. Application

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7. Enrichment

PRE-TEST
Before you begin your journey in this module, let us see what you know (or do not know) regarding cycle and
pattern of the night sky. Just be honest with your answers for your scores in this diagnostic test will not be part of your
class performance in this course.
Instructions: Accomplish this diagnostic test by providing answers to the test questions below. Take a picture of your
answers and send them to my private messenger account. You are given at most 30 minutes to answer this test. You may
also answer the test offline by encircling the letter that corresponds to your answer.
1. What are telescope used for?
a. To see small objects
b. To measure distance
c. To see far away objects
d. To predict weather
2. He is the famous scientist who invented the reflecting telescope.
a. Isaac Newton
b. Albert Einstein
c. Galileo Galilei
d. Hans Lippershey
3. What lenses did Kepler used in his refractor that has higher magnification than that of Galileo used?
a. Convex and concave lenses
b. Two convex lenses
c. Two concave lenses
d. Mirror lenses
4. What type of telescope uses mirror to focus the light of the image?
a. Reflecting telescope
b. Refracting telescope
5.
6.
7. The larger the _________, the more light a telescope can gather.
a. Magnification
b. Aperture
c. Lens
d. Eyepiece
8. What do we call the lens in a telescope that spreads out the light across the retina of your eye?
a. Eyepiece
b. Aperture
c. Objective lens
d. Mirror lens
9.
10.

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PRE-ACTIVITY
Have you tried burning a dried leaf or a slipper using a magnifying glass? If not, try watching this short video on
Youtube. Just click the link below.
https://youtu.be/4XAcCiguRm4

The concept behind it is that magnifying glass lens has a convex shape,
which bends the sunlight, so that all the sunlight hitting the lens is concentrated into
one focal point. If you position a leaf so that it is at the same distance as the focal
point, there is enough energy to generate a lot of heat.
One of the general properties of a good telescope is how well it can collects
light. Although a telescope's ability to collect light is directly related to the diameter
of the lens or mirror -- the aperture -- that is used to gather light. Generally, the
larger the aperture, the more light the telescope collects and brings to focus, and the brighter the final image.

ACTIVITY
For this activity, create comparison chart of the two types of telescope; refracting telescope and reflecting
telescope. Which telescope is better? Include the advantages and disadvantages of using refracting and reflecting
telescopes, and the parts of the each telescope. Write your references below your chart. For your submission, send it as a
PDF file to your Google drive folder.

COMPARISON CHART
Refracting Telescope Reflecting Telescope
Parts
Materials
Advantages
Disadvantages
Distinctive characteristics

You can watch a Youtube video describing both the reflecting and refracting telescopes.
https://youtu.be/HAW_6ukFO9w

ANALYSIS

After learning the differences of reflecting and refracting telescopes let us try to examine the magnifying power,
light gathering power and resolving power of some telescopes.
1. The objective has a focal length of 254 cm (100 inches) and the eyepiece has a focal length of 2.54 cm (1
inch), what is it magnification power?
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2. How can you improve the magnifying power of a telescope?
3.
4.

IMPORTANT FEATURES OF TELESCOPES

The magnification, sometimes referred to as magnifying power, is determined by dividing the focal length of the
objective by the focal length of the eyepiece.
The most important of all the powers of an optical telescope is its light-gathering power. This capacity is strictly
a function of the diameter of the clear objective—that is, the aperture—of the telescope. Comparisons of different-sized
apertures for their light-gathering power are calculated by the ratio of their diameters squared.
For example, a 25-cm (10-inch) objective will collect four times the light of a 12.5-cm (5-inch) objective ([25 ×
25] ÷ [12.5 × 12.5] = 4). The advantage of collecting more light with a larger-aperture telescope is that one can observe
fainter stars, nebulae, and very distant galaxies.
Resolving power is another important feature of a telescope. This is the ability of the instrument to distinguish
clearly between two points whose angular separation is less than the smallest angle that the observer’s eye can resolve.
The resolving power of a telescope can be calculated by the following formula: resolving power = 11.25 seconds of arc/d,
where d is the diameter of the objective expressed in centimetres.
Thus, a 25-cm-diameter objective has a theoretical resolution of 0.45 second of arc and a 250-cm (100-inch)
telescope has one of 0.045 second of arc. An important application of resolving power is in the observation of visual
binary stars.

ABSTRACTION
Telescope, device used to form magnified images of distant objects. The telescope is undoubtedly the most
important investigative tool in astronomy. It provides a means of collecting and analyzing radiation from celestial objects,
even those in the far reaches of the universe.
History of telescope started in 1608 with the group of Dutch spectacle-makers who
all created first working models of telescope at the same time. However, credit for the
creation of first one was given to Hans Lippershey, German-born lens grinder and spectacle
maker who first managed to gain a patent on a telescope device. He managed to do that not
on his own, but using almost 2 thousand years of slowly growing experience that was
gathered by Indian, Egyptian, Chinese, Greece, Roman and Arab scientists. All those
ancient accounts were gathered and examined in the famous “Book of Optics” by Arab
scholar Alhazen (965 – 1040 AD), which became the foundation of knowledge of optics in
Europe. In the beginning, Venice and Florence started creating their own lenses that were
used for spectacles in 13th century, with Germany and Netherlands coming to prominence
century later.
Discovery of Hans Lippershey was popularized across Europe not via its own
design of telescope, but with the improved design that was created by Galileo Galilei just 2
years later. Even though this telescope had many limitations (chromatic aberrations, low
field of view), it was enough for Galileo to start looking at the sky and discovery of phases
of Venus, 4 largest moons of Jupiter, and find proof that will support astronomical model of
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heliocentrism. After Galileo, scientists from all around Europe started to evolve its technology, they provided
mathematical descriptions of the way rays of light are interacting with lenses, and provided several new ways to create
telescope. The pioneers in that field were Isaac Newton who in 1668 built first practical reflecting telescope (although it
was not used much because it was very complicated and expensive for manufacture). One of the most important moments
in the history of modern telescope happened in mid-18th century with the discovery of first achromatic lens that enabled
creation of telescopes that were not plagued by the effects of chromatic and spherical aberration. Reflecting mirrors also
evolved after first models of Isaac Newton, especially after the introduction of f silver coated glass mirrors in 1850s and
aluminized mirrors in early 1930s.

In 20th century, telescopes of all shapes and sizes started being made, with many of them being focused not on gathering
visible light, but on collecting other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum (x-rays, ultraviolet, infrared, gamma ray…). As
for optical telescopes, the maximum size of reflecting telescope mirror remained at around 1m diameter, so telescope
manufacturers started making segmented mirrors that grew to the size of 10m of diameter.

Plans for building future telescopes on both earth and in space are
already underway, and many of them strive to break previous records
in pretty spectaculars - “European Extremely Large Telescope” will
have main segmented mirror with the diameter of 39.9m, and “James
Web Space Telescope” aims to have main mirror that is many times
larger than the one used by Hubble Space Telescope.

Facts:
The James Webb Space Telescope (sometimes called JWST or Webb) is an orbiting infrared observatory that
will complement and extend the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope, with longer wavelength coverage and greatly
improved sensitivity. The longer wavelengths enable Webb to look much closer to the beginning of time and to hunt for
the unobserved formation of the first galaxies, as well as to look inside dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are
forming today.
You can watch a 360 degrees tour of the Hubble telescope in space.
https://youtu.be/XZ_WeTGCU9o

APPLICATION
In its essence, a telescope is an instrument that makes a faraway object look closer. To do this, a telescope has a
device that collects light from a distant object (objective lens or primary mirror) and brings that light (image) to a focus
where a second device (eyepiece lens) magnifies the image and brings it to your eye.
Your task is to make a simple telescope at home. So you will need the following:

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Materials needed:
 two magnifying glasses - perhaps 1 - 1.5 inches (2.5-3 cm) diameter (it works best if one is larger than the other)
 a cardboard tube - paper towel roll or gift-wrapping paper roll (it helps if it is long)
 duct tape
 scissors
 a ruler, yard stick, or tape measure
 sheet of printed paper - newspaper or magazine will do

To assemble your telescope, do the following:

1. Get the two magnifying glasses and a sheet of printed paper.
2. Hold one magnifying glass (the bigger one) between you and the paper. The image of the print will look blurry.
3. Place the second magnifying glass between your eye and the first magnifying glass.
4. Move the second glass forward or backward until the print comes into sharp focus. You will notice that the print
appears larger and upside down.
5. Have a friend measure the distance between the two magnifying glasses and write the distance down.
6. Cut a slot in the cardboard tube near the front opening about an inch (2.5 cm) away. Do not cut all the way
through the tube. The slot should be able to hold the large magnifying glass.
7. Cut a second slot in the tube the same distance from the first slot as your friend wrote down. This is where the
second magnifying glass will go.
8. Place the two magnifying glasses in their slots (big one at front, little one at back) and tape them in with the duct
tape
9. Leave about 0.5 - 1 inch (1 - 2 cm) of tube behind the small magnifying glass and cut off any excess tube
remaining.
10. Check to see that it works by looking at the printed page. You may have to play slightly to get the exact distances
between the two glasses right so that the image comes to a focus.
11. You have just built a simple refracting telescope! With your telescope, you should be able to see the moon and
some star clusters as well as terrestrial objects (i.e. birds).

https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Telescope

ENRICHMENT
For this task, we will have our next sky observation. We will be using our telescope to observe the moon and
some star clusters.
Try to stay away from sources of light. Turn off your porch lights, and if you are friendly with your neighbors,
ask them to turn theirs off as well, and then come share the view through your telescope! If you live in a light polluted
location, welcome to the situation faced by millions of amateur astronomers. The point here is to choose the darkest
location possible for your situation, and then enjoy the views.

REFERENCES
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