Telescopes

Austin Chen
June 2023

Table of Contents
1 Introduction 2

2 Basic Angle Formulas 2

3 Rayleigh Criterion 3

4 Focal Ratio 5

5 Magnification 6

6 Magnitudes 6

7 Conclusion 8

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USAAAO Guide Austin Chen

1 Introduction
Telescopes are the instruments that allow astronomers to view the universe. In this paper, let’s
observe how they work.

2 Basic Angle Formulas

You should know how to convert degrees into radians and vice-versa:

180◦ = π rad.

And also degrees into arcminutes and arcseconds. There are 60 arcminutes in a degree and 60
arcseconds in an arcminute:
1◦ = 60′ = 3600′′ ,
where arcminute is denoted by ′ and arcsecond denoted by ′′ .

Figure 1

See Fig. 1. By definition, θ in radians is equal to the arc length subtended over the radius of the
circle:
a
θ=
r

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Figure 2

See Fig. 2. D is the length of the line connecting the two line segments of length r, and d is the
distance from the center of the circle to the line segment of length D. When a << r, a ≈ D and
r ≈ d, thus
D
θ≈ .
d
Now consider viewing an object: You are standing at the center of the circle and the object of
length D is placed a distance d away from you. If the object is sufficiently far, to satisfy a << r,
(almost all cases in Astronomy), then the angular diameter of the object is simply

D
θ= .
d

Example 2.1. What is the angular diameter of the Sun, in arcminutes? Use that the radius
of Sun is 6.96 × 105 km.

Solution: Use that the Sun is 1 AU away.

2 · 6.96 × 108 m
θ= = 31.9′
1.50 × 1011 m
About half a degree!

3 Rayleigh Criterion
When viewing an object through a telescope, a diffraction pattern is produced as shown in Fig. 3.

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Figure 3: Circular aperture diffraction pattern of a point source.

This phenomenon is closely related to the single-slit diffraction pattern. Now consider when viewing
two objects as shown in Fig. 4.

Figure 4: Diffraction pattern of two point sources. By the Rayleigh criterion: (a) The sources are
resolvable. (b) The sources are not resolvable.
The Rayleigh criterion says that two objects are unresolved if the central maximum of one diffrac-
tion pattern falls inside the first minimum of the other, and that they are resolved otherwise. This
condition is quite arbitrary - you may consider Fig. 4. (b) to be resolvable - but this will be the
condition IOAA uses. The solution of the Rayleigh Criterion is
λ
θ = 1.22 ,
D
where λ is the wavelength of light being observed, D is the diameter of the aperture of the telescope,
and θ is the minimum angle, in radians, at which if two objects are separated an angle θ in the
sky, they are said to be resolvable by this particular telescope. Think about why this formula
makes sense: As you increase λ, such as from visible light to radio waves, it becomes harder to
distinguish two objects as the diffraction patterns get larger and thus θ increases. As you increase
D, it is easier to resolve with a larger aperture as the diffraction patterns get smaller and thus θ
decreases. This is one of the MOST IMPORTANT formulas in all of IOAA/USAAAO and will
be used many times.

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Example 3.1. How far would two objects have to be placed on the surface of the moon to
be able to be resolved by the human eye? Use that the distance to the moon is 3.82 × 105
km and that the diameter of a human pupil is 3 mm.

Solution: Use that the human eye is observing at visible light with λ = 550 nm.

550 × 10−9 m
D = dθ = 3.82 × 105 km(1.22 · ) = 85.4 km.
3 × 10−3 m

Example 3.2. (USAAAO Round One 2022, Question 6)

(a) 0.014, JWST

(b) 0.14, HST
(c) 1.4, JWST
(d) 14, HST
(e) 140, JWST

Solution: −9
θ(HST) 1.22 500×10
2.4 m
m
= −6 m = 0.135.
θ(JWST) 1.22 10×10
6.5 m
This means that JWST has a larger minimum angular resolution, so HST can resolve smaller
angular features. The answer is B .

4 Focal Ratio
If the focal length of a telescope is f , and the diameter of its aperture is D, then the focal ratio is
f
F = .
D
If a telescope is said to be “f/n”, n denotes its focal ratio; F = n.

Example 4.1. (USAAAO Round One 2022, Question 19)

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(a) 1.2 × 106 pc

(b) 1.5 × 106 pc
(c) 3.0 × 106 pc
(d) 4.2 × 106 pc
(e) 5.8 × 106 pc

Solution: Note: I realize it’s been kind of confusing when I’ve been using D for both the diameter
of the aperture of a telescope and the diameter of an object. I’ll also use Do for the diameter of
the aperture of a telescope.
D DDo Df 2 · 4.1 pc · 1.0 m
d= = = = = 1.49 × 106 pc.
θ 1.22λ 1.22F λ 1.22 · 9 · 5000 × 10−10 m

The answer is B .

5 Magnification
If the focal length of a telescope’s primary or objective lens is fo (same as f used in section 4), and
the focal length of its eyepiece is fe , then the magnification of the telescope is
fo
m= .
fe
If the field of view of a telescope’s eyepiece is F OVe , then the field of view of the telescope is
F OVe
F OV = .
m

6 Magnitudes
If the magnitudes of two objects are m1 , m2 , and the flux of the image of the objects are F1 , F2 ,
then
F1
m1 − m2 = −2.5 log10 .
F2
Additionally, the Light-Gathering Power, or how much total light a telescope receives, is propor-
tional to Do2 .

Example 6.1. (USAAAO NAO, Medium Question 1)

An astronomer used his f/5 telescope with a diameter of 130 mm to observe a binary system.

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He is using an eyepiece with a field of view of 45◦ and a focal length of 25 mm. In this system,
star A has a mass of 18.9 solar masses, and an apparent magnitude in the V filter of 9.14.
Star B has a mass of 16.2 solar masses, and an apparent magnitude in the V filter of 9.60.
The period of the system is 108 days, and the distance between the binary stars and the
Solar System is 2.29 kpc. The binary system has an edge-on orbit relative to the Solar
System.
(a) What is the field of view of the telescope?
(b) What is the limiting magnitude of the telescope?
(c) What is the angular resolution of the telescope?
(d) What is the angular separation between the stars?
(e) Is the astronomer able to observe both stars as distinct points in the telescope? Answer
as YES or NO.
The limiting magnitude for the human eye is 6.0, and the diameter of the pupil is equal to
7.0 mm. Also consider that visible light has a wavelength of 550 nm.

Solution:
(a)
F OVe F OVe fe F OVe fe 45◦ · 25 mm
F OV = = = = = 1.73◦ .
m fo F Do 5 · 130 mm
(b) This one is bit tricky. You have to use the human eye as reference. Let m1 , m2 be the limiting
magnitudes of the human eye and the telescope. FF21 is the ratio of the flux received by the human
eye and the telescope of the limiting magnitude objects. This ratio is going to be less than 1: the
telescope can receive less flux at the limit because it has more Light-Gathering Power. This ratio
is equal to the inverse ratio of their Light-Gathering Power thus equal to the inverse ratio of the
squares of their aperture diameters:
D22
m1 − m2 = −2.5 log10 ( )
D12
(130 mm)2
6.0 − m2 = −2.5 log10
(7.0 mm)2
m2 = 12.3.
(c)
λ 550 × 10−9
θ = 1.22 = 1.22 = 5.16 × 10−6 rad
Do 130 × 10−3
(d) Using Kepler’s third law, you can determine that the separation between the two stars is
a = 1.45 AU.
Then
a 1.45 · 1.50 × 1011 m
θ= = = 3.07 × 10−9 rad.
d 2.29 × 103 · 3.09 × 1016 m
(e) The angular separation between the stars is smaller than the limiting angular resolution of the
telescope. This means that the telescope cannot resolve the stars and sees them as one point, so
NO .

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7 Conclusion
Understanding telescopes are the first steps to becoming an Astronomer and also increasing your
USAAAO scores!