What is unique about a Cassegrain telescope?

What is unique about a Cassegrain telescope?

The Cassegrain reflector is a combination of a primary concave mirror and a secondary convex mirror, often used in optical telescopes and radio antennas, the main characteristic being that the optical path folds back onto itself, relative to the optical system’s primary mirror entrance aperture.

What is a Cassegrain telescope design?

The Cassegrain telescope is a type of reflecting telescope which employs a combination of a primary concave mirror and a secondary convex mirror into its design. In the classic Cassegrain telescope, a parabolic primary mirror has a hole placed in its center.

What is a telescope baffle?

Baffles are frequently built into many telescope designs to stop this unwanted light from reaching the eyepiece by stopping it in its tracks. A baffle is a ring made of thin plastic or aluminium that is attached to the inside of the optical tube and is painted in a black matt finish to further absorb unwanted light.

How does a Cassegrain reflector work?

In the Cassegrain reflector, parallel rays of light entering the telescope are reflected from a large concave mirror toward the focal point of that mirror, which is called the prime focus of the telescope. The Cassegrain reflector has been employed in radio transmitters and receivers.

How does a Cassegrain reflecting telescope work?

The Cassegrain telescope is an astronomical reflecting telescope, in which the light is incident on a large concave paraboloid mirror, and reflected onto a smaller convex hyperboloid mirror. This reflected light is reflected again through a hole in the concave mirror to finally form the image.

How does a Cassegrain reflector telescope work?

What is the meaning of Cassegrain?

: a reflecting telescope that has a paraboloidal primary mirror and hyperboloidal secondary mirror, is equivalent in its optical effects to a telephoto lens, and usually has the light brought to a focus through a perforation in the center of the primary mirror.

Why convex mirror is used in Cassegrain telescope?

Before reaching the prime focus, the light rays are reflected again by a small convex mirror that brings them to a focus near a small hole in the centre of the main mirror.

Why is the Cassegrain telescope shorter?

Why are Cassegrain telescopes shorter than Newtonian reflecting telescopes? Many websites say this is because the effective focal length of the objective is increased by making the secondary mirror convex. This allows a Cassegrain telescope to be shorter than a similarly powered Newtonian.

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