Refractor vs Reflector telescope explained for beginners

when you're new to astronomy and stargazing you will come across lots of different technical information this can be very overwhelming and might discourage a newbie from continuing in this hobby that's why on this channel we try to simplify the complex things about telescopes while buying a telescope you will find there are different types of telescopes previously we've explained what these different types of telescopes are today we will see in detail the differences between refractor and reflector type telescopes refractor telescope a refractor telescope is the origin of the telescope the first telescope ever made was the refractor telescope its design is very simple it has the lens at the front and an eyepiece at the back the light passes through the telescope lens to the eyepiece the distance light travels from the lens of the eyepiece is its focal length if you want to learn more about focal length then you should watch this video if the focal length of a telescope is longer then you can get maximum magnification with that telescope when telescopes were invented at that time every single telescope was a refractor telescope so to get more magnification they built very long tube telescopes the refractor telescope uses a lens instead of mirrors refractor telescopes get very expensive as the aperture size of the telescope increases manufacturing a big aperture refractor will need a big lens so manufacturing such a big lens is expensive so most of the refractor telescopes you will find have an aperture below 5 inches the refractor telescope is further divided into two types and acromatic refractor and an apochromatic refractor now what is the difference between these two types this classification of refractor telescopes is done on the basis of how many wavelengths of light it focuses light has three main fundamental colors red blue and green a normal refractory uses a single lens but with a single lens the telescope produces lots of chromatic aberrations these chromatic aberrations happen because all three colors do not focus on one single point so to reduce these chromatic aberrations a second lens is used in these refractors when these lenses are used it is called a doublet refractor telescope an acromatic refractor telescope focuses two wavelengths of light at a single point this results in fewer chromatic aberrations but even with the acromatic refractor there are still some chromatic aberrations you might notice so to get rid of even those chromatic aberrations through a fracture telescope needs to focus all three wavelengths at one single point the apochromatic refractor telescope does the exact same thing these telescopes usually use three lenses to focus all three wavelengths at a single point with advancements in lens technology it's also possible to achieve this by using only two lenses but the majority of apochromatic refractors you will find use three lenses the apochromatic refractor telescope is more expensive than the acromatic refractor telescope if you just want to observe celestial objects then your best option is to stick with an acromatic refractor telescope APO chromatic telescopes usually give better and sharper images which are good for astrophotography most astrophotographers prefer an apochromatic telescope over an acromatic telescope so if you want to do astrophotography then an apochromatic telescope is for you advantages of refractor telescopes the image quality you get with a refractor telescope is good these telescopes do not need any collimation these telescopes are closed tube telescopes so they do not need frequent cleaning disadvantages of refractor telescopes these telescopes use lenses that cause refraction of light and because of this they suffer from chromatic apparitions a larger lens is very costly to manufacture so these telescopes get very expensive with an increase in aperture size [Music] reflector telescope a reflector telescope does not look like a traditional telescope these telescopes use mirrors instead of lenses to collect light the eyepiece of the reflector telescope is at the front you can recognize a reflector telescope just by the position of its eyepiece a typical reflector telescope has two mirrors one mirror is at the bottom of the telescope this mirror collects light and then reflects it onto the secondary mirror from the secondary mirror the light is directed towards the eyepiece or a camera reflectors are also called Newtonian reflectors initially when the concept of a reflector telescope surfaced they were thinking of using only one primary mirror and an eyepiece at the front but this design limited the amount of light collected by the primary mirror because the person's head blocked the primary mirror Sir Isaac Newton came up with the idea of putting a plain mirror at an angle of 45 degrees at the front and diverting the light to the side of a telescope tube which ultimately shifted the whole eyepiece to the side of a telescope another type of reflector telescope is the dobsonian telescope dobsonian telescopes are exactly the same as Newtonian reflector telescopes the only difference between these telescopes is that the dobcn telescope uses a dobsonian mount if you want to know in detail about the dobsonian telescope then you should watch this video on the channel the reflector telescope has many advantages over refractor telescopes the biggest advantage of a reflector telescope is that it can be made with large apertures the main component of these telescopes is the mirror so manufacturing a big mirror is not that costly refractor telescopes suffer from chromatic apparitions reflectors do not use lenses they just reflect the light they collect so they do not suffer from chromatic apparitions these telescopes are lightweight compared to similar size refractor telescopes disadvantages of reflector telescopes the reflector telescope is an open tube telescope so they gather a lot of dust and need to be cleaned quite often the mirrors of the reflector Telescope need collimation the time required to collimate your telescope ranges from 5 minutes to 30 minutes depending on the type of reflector telescope you have some good refractor and reflector telescopes are mentioned in the description you should check them out and don't forget to subscribe to the channel for more such content [Music]

Channel: Alien Tech

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Id: DqjO4HGk9ro

Length: 7min 11sec (431 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 03 2022