Refractor Telescope

A refractor telescope is a type of optical scope that lets both scientists and hobbyist enjoy and study the night’s sky with great detail. Essentially, a series of lenses that like a super pair of glasses, focuses and increases the size of whatever the user looks at. These types of scopes are used in scientific work, but are also commonly found for the home user. Because they don’t involve mirrors as a reflecting telescope does, they don’t require any difficult collimation (alignment) that can put images out of focus until corrected.

For this reason, they are great for introductory users and most beginners scopes are found in this form. Whatever level of scope you’re looking at there a few basic parts that are found with each refractor telescope. The most obvious is the main scope itself. Next, is what’s known as the finder’s scope, which is more like a pair of binoculars and will help you find the general area of objects in the sky rather than having to look close up all the time. Finally, is the stand, which can be of two varieties. The most common is a stand that allows the scope to move horizontally and vertically. The other is a Newtonian stand, which allows the user to move the scope at a parabolic arc. The advantage of this scope is that they can track objects throughout the night with a simple curved adjustment (that is, how objects move around the Earth) rather than having to repeatedly find objects.

A refractor telescope do have some drawbacks, however most the problems occur as the scope gets increasingly larger. For the home user, the images they see with their scope should be clear and brilliantly colored.

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