Index

Pg.no
1. Spherical lenses 2

2. Image formation by spherical lenses 5

3.Lens formula 7

4.Astronomical Telescope 10

5.Parts Required 10

6.Working Principle of an Astronomical Telescope 11

7.Uses 14

8.Future Aspects 15

9.Bibliography 16

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INVENTION

Refractors were the earliest type of optical telescope. The first record of a
refracting telescope appeared in the Netherlands about 1608, when a spectacle maker
from Middelburg named Hans Lippershey unsuccessfully tried to patent one. News of
the patent spread fast and Galileo Galilei, happening to be in Venice in the month of
May 1609, heard of the invention, constructed a version of his own, and applied it to
making astronomical discoveries.

MODELS & DESIGNS

 Galileo’s Telescope

 Keplerian Telescope

 Achromatic Refractor

 Apochromatic Refractor

GALILEAN TELESCOPE

The design Galileo Galilei used c. 1609 is commonly called a Galilean

telescope. It used a convergent (plano-convex) objective lens and a divergent (plano-
concave) eyepiece lens (Galileo, 1610). A Galilean telescope, because the design has
no intermediary focus, results in a non-inverted and, with the help of some devices, an
upright image.

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 Galileo's most powerful telescope, with a total length of 980 millimetres (3 ft 3
in), magnified objects about 30 times. Galileo had to work with the poor lens
technology of the time, and found he had to use aperture stops to reduce the diameter
of the objective lens (increase its focal ratio) to limit aberrations, so his telescope
produced blurry and distorted images with a narrow field of view. Despite these flaws,
the telescope was still good enough for Galileo to explore the sky. He used it to view
craters on the Moon, the four largest moons of Jupiter, and the phases of Venus.

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SPHERICAL LENSES

A spherical lens is a lens in which each spherical surface forms part of a sphere
and so all meridians of each surface have the same curvature and the refraction is
symmetrical about the principal axis.

POLE

The centre of the spherical refracting surface of the lens is called the pole. It is
the point where the principal axis meets the surface of the lens.

OPTICAL CENTRE

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 The point on the principal axis at the centre of the lens is called the optical
centre.

CENTRE OF CURVATURE

A lens has two spherical surfaces; these two spherical surfaces form a part of a
sphere. The centre of these spheres is known as the centre of curvature.

PRINCIPAL AXIS

The principal axis is an imaginary line passing through the centres of curvature
and the pole.

APERTURE

The area of the lens suitable for refraction is called aperture. The aperture of the
lens is the effective diameter of its light-transmitting area.

FOCUS

Focus is the point onto which collimated light parallel to the axis is focused.

FOCAL LENGTH

The focal length is the distance between the optical centre and the focal point or
focus of the lens

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IMAGE FORMATION BY CONVEX AND CONCAVE LENS

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7
 THIN LENS FORMULA
Lens formula relates the distance of object from the lens with distance of image
from the lens. Before deriving lens formula, following sign conventions and
assumptions must be kept in mind.

ASSUMPTIONS

(1) Sizes of object and image are small

(2) Angle of incidence and refraction are small angles

SIGN CONVENTIONS: (NEW CARTESIAN SIGN CONVENTION)

(1) Incident light is always shown from left to right.

(2) All the distances are measured from the pole

(3) The distances measured in the direction of incident light are taken positive
and those measured opposite to direction of incident light are negative.

(4) Distances measured above principal axis are positive and below principal
axis are negative.

DERIVING THE LENS FORMULA

Lens formula can be derived for any one of the cases of image formation shown
before. When we derive a formula, we keep in mind the sign conventions and
substitute each value with sign. This makes a formula suitable to be applied in any
case. Here, we shall derive the formula for two cases

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Real Object and Real image (Convex lenses)

CA = -u (object distance)

CB+v (image distance)

CF₂ = +f (focal length)

triangleA’AC – triangleB’BC

AA'/B'B=CA/CB ………(i)

Also trianglePCF₂– triangleB'BF₂

=>PC/BB'=CF₂/BF₂ (or) A'A/B'B=CF₂/(CB-CF₂) …..….(ii)

From (i)and(ii) we get

CA/CB=CF₂/(CB-CF₂)

=>-u/+v=f/v-f

uv-uf=-vf

uv=uf-vf

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=>1/f=1/v-1/u ……(÷throughout by uvf)

ASTRONOMICAL TELESCOPE

An Astronomical Telescope is a simple device based on optical refraction through

spherical lenses, that is used to view heavenly bodies such as the moon, stars and
distant objects.

PARTS REQUIRED

• Objective Lens: This lens is fitted at the front side of the telescope. It should
have a large aperture (diameter) and a large focal length.

• Eyepiece: This lens is fitted at the back side of the telescope. It should have a
smaller aperture (diameter) and focal length as compared to the objective
lens.

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WORKING

As this telescope uses a lens as an objective, it is called a refracting telescope

or refractor.

The objective lens forms a real, reduced image I of the object. This image is
the object for the eyepiece lens, which forms an enlarged, virtual image of I.
Objects that are viewed with a telescope are usually so far away from the
instrument that the first image I is formed very nearly at the second focal point of
the objective lens. If the final image I’ formed by the eyepiece is at infinity (for
most comfortable viewing by a normal eye), the first image must also be at the first
focal point of the eyepiece. The distance between objective and eyepiece, which is

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the length of the telescope, is therefore the sum of the focal lengths of objective and
eyepiece, ƒ1 +ƒ2.

The angular magnification M of a telescope is defined as the ratio of the

angle subtended at the eye by the final image I’ to the angle subtended at the eye by
the object. We can express this ratio in terms of the focal lengths of objective and
eyepiece. The object (not shown) subtends an angle Ө at the objective and would
subtend essentially the same angle at the eye. Also, since the observer’s eye is
placed just to the right of the focal point F 2’, the angle subtended at the eye by the
final image is very nearly equal to the angle Ө’. As bd is parallel to the optic axis,
the distances ab and cd are equal to each other and also to the height y’ of the real
image I. Because the angles Ө and Ө’ are small, they may be approximated by their
tangents. From the right triangles F1ab and F2cd,

And the angular magnification M is

The angular magnification M of a telescope is equal to the ratio of the focal

length of the objective to that of the eyepiece. The negative sign shows that the final
image is inverted. This equation shows that to achieve good angular magnification,
a telescope should have a long objective focal length ƒ1.

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APPLICATION AND ACHIEVEMENTS

Refracting telescopes were noted for their use in astronomy as well as for
terrestrial viewing. Many early discoveries of the Solar System were made with
singlet refractors.

The use of refracting telescopic optics are ubiquitous in photography, and are
also used in Earth orbit.

One of the more famous applications of the refracting telescope was when
Galileo used it to discover the four largest moons of Jupiter in 1609. Furthermore,
early refractors were also used several decades later to discover Titan, the largest
moon of Saturn, along with three more of Saturn's moons.

In the 19th century, refracting telescopes were used for pioneering work on
astrophotography and spectroscopy, and the related instrument, the heliometer, was
used to calculate the distance to another star for the first time. Their modest apertures
did not lead to as many discoveries and typically so small in aperture that many
astronomical objects were simply not observeable until the advent of long-exposure
photography, by which time the reputation and quirks of reflecting telescopes were
beginning to exceed those of the refractors. Despite this, some discoveries include the
Moons of Mars, a fifth Moon of Jupiter, and many double star discoveries including
Sirius (the Dog star). Refactors were often used for positional astronomy, besides
from the other uses in photography and terrestrial viewing.

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