Astronomy & Space Science · AST-061
Refracting & Reflecting Telescopes: Foundations
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Overview
The physical idea behind Refracting & Reflecting Telescopes
Refracting telescopes use lenses to bend light to a focus, while reflecting telescopes use curved mirrors. Both can form high-quality astronomical images, but their engineering trade-offs differ strongly as aperture increases.
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- 01TelescopesOpen source ↗
OpenStax Astronomy 2e
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Refracting telescopes use lenses to bend light to a focus, while reflecting telescopes use curved mirrors.
supported · checked Sep 22, 2026Historic refractors revealed planets and binaries, but most modern large research telescopes are reflectors because large mirrors can be supported from behind, segmented, actively shaped, and coated for selected wavelength ranges.
supported · checked Sep 22, 2026Refraction changes ray direction because light changes speed in glass, and different wavelengths refract by different amounts, causing chromatic aberration unless corrected.
supported · checked Sep 22, 2026