Equipment: Telescopes

This year, the astronomy club has four different telescopes at its disposal: 

• A reflector telescope. This uses a large curved mirror (the objective mirror) to collect light, which is reflected onto a secondary mirror that reflects the light out to the side of the telescope, passing through a focusing lens.

• A refracting telescope, which uses a pair of lenses to collect and focus light from a celestial object, as opposed to mirrors. The observer views from the back of the telescope, as opposed to the side.

• A Cassegrain telescope, which uses a lens to focus light onto a primary mirror, which is focuses onto a smaller secondary mirror, reflecting through a hole in the primary mirror through the eyepiece. This telescope is much smaller than the other two telescopes, as it uses the mirrors to compress its focal length into a smaller space.

• A small refractor telescope equipped with a hydrogen-alpha filter for observation of the sun.