Lecture 13 – Telescopes
Summary / Checklist of the Main Concepts to Understand and Remember

Type of Telescopes  
red bullet What types of electromagnetic waves do we receive from space on the Earth's surface?  
• Why don't we get large amounts of electromagnetic waves of all types on the Earth's surface?  
red bullet The two main types of telescope design: What are refracting and reflecting telescopes?  
• Who is generally credited with building the first reflecting telescope?  
red bullet What are the advantages of one type of telescope design over the other?  
     
Telescope Performance  
• Other than magnification, what are the two most important performance characteristics of a telescope?  
red bullet What do we mean by the light gathering power of a telescope?  
red bullet How can one improve the light gathering power of a telescope?  
red bullet What do we mean by the angular resolution of a telescope?  
red bullet How can one improve the angular resolution of a telescope, and what is the reason why that helps?  
• Approximately how wide is the aperture of the largest telescopes currently in use?  
• What does one look for in the location for a telescope? Why are some of the best telescopes placed in orbit around the Earth?  
• What is adaptive optics? What is interferometry?  
     

Topics from the lecture page and textbook not listed above [or between square brackets] were not covered in class;
Underlined words indicate that I will expect students to remember a number or a name related to that topic.

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