Concept in Definition ABC

It is designated by the name of telescope to all those optical devices shaped like a tube and that serve to see in detail elements that are to the distance and that they are impossible to observe with the naked eye, especially the celestial bodies.

In most cases, telescopes are used to observe the most unique characteristics of various celestial bodies that make up the Solar system and, depending on your complexity or scope, some provide very important data to science in pursuit of man continuing to understand the universe.

Basic tool of astronomy to observe the celestial bodies

As a consequence, this instrument has a special and widespread use in the astronomy, being by the way his tool basic.

Origin and history

The term telescope comes from the Greek word teleskopein, which means 'see far'. Although finding an exact date of creation of the first telescope is not an easy task due to the numerous projects created by the human being to Throughout history, it is estimated that the first really useful models were designed at different times in the 16th century in Europe from the North. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Galileo Galilei himself, an Italian astronomer recognized and closely associated with the

revolution scientist, he used a telescopic device to conduct his investigations and observations on the functioning Of the solar system.

The pioneer in his design was a German manufacturer of glasses named Hans Lippershey, while Galilei later perfected it but was inspired by a telescope of Dutch origin, although It deformed the objects it focused on a lot, but Galileo and his expertise managed to magnify his object about six times and he armed the device with two lenses, a convex glass and a ocular. With the creation of it, in the year 1609, Galileo was able to appreciate the moon, the planet Jupiter and several stars and soon after the moons of Jupiter.

But the advances and improvements continued, for example, Isaac Newton, made a telescope called a reflector that used a curved mirror that replaced the objective glass; Close to the focus he placed another mirror with the mission that the reflector rays were deflected when they were directed to the eyepiece.

How does it work?

The telescope works on the basis of a powerful lens that can, in the most developed cases, exceed 200 mm. from diameter, and that, therefore, allows us to observe the details of celestial bodies and nebulae at an enormous distance. Some of these telescopes even allow observing other galaxies, although these are cases of exclusive scientific use and of impressive size. Although any human being can have a small or medium-sized telescope in his own home, usually the longest-range telescopes, true technological masses, are found in observatories and planetariums scientists.

Telescopes out of Earth orbit: Hubble

Some other telescopes have also been specially designed to orbit, that is, to leave the Earth's atmosphere and stay in the orbit of some specific celestial body or in outer space itself, achieving incredible images (such is the case of the famous Hubble space telescope or the telescope Hale).

In the special case of the Hubble telescope, it orbits around the planet earth and in the outer part of the atmosphere. It deals with achieving images of space as accurate as possible and obviously with a possibility of making it much larger than the telescopes that are on the earth's surface. It has an access for astronauts, for visits or to carry out necessary repairs.
It is called that way in honor of its creator, the American astronomer Edwin Hubble, who managed to get it into orbit in 1990 in a plan funded by NASA.

Among the many contributions that Hubble has brought, stands out having been able to photograph the most distant galaxy from our planet (thirteen thousand seven hundred light years) and also contributes to obtain more exact information about the galaxies and to unravel the beginning of the world.

Telescope Topics