Shrinking the Telescope – “Astronomers from the past 50 years have created wondrous discoveries, enlarged our comprehension of the universe and opened humanity’s vision beyond the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Our understanding of how the cosmos was born and how many of its phenomena arise has grown exponentially in only one human lifetime. In spite of these terrific strides there remain basic questions that are largely unanswered. To further our understanding of how our present universe formed after the Big Bang requires a new sort of Observatory having capabilities currently unavailable in either existing ground-based or space telescopes.”
The bigger is better notion is so embodied within our understanding, that just the notion of smaller more efficient telescope seems to defy all the laws of mathematics. Yet, science always supports Miniature Size Telescopes. It is, however, the lock of comprehension of the fundamental principle of focus that’s deprives us over the centuries. Research in this field has provided a complete understanding of the science behind optical telescope performance that has contributed to the design of the next generation of telescopes. The debut size of mini telescope are the size of a viewfinder currently used on present telescopes. However, these new generation of telescopes will posses resolving powerful greater than even the biggest known telescope.
Technique in lens and mirror manufacturing has improved significantly over time. With the aid of computers, lasers, and robotics technologies, optics can be made with precision accuracy. Finally, the size of telescopes will reduce to wearable instrument as small as a pair of glasses, in the not so distance future. They will have the benefit of precise movement and shock absorbent the human mind provides. Wide field of view like that of the naked eye, impressive focus, infinite magnification (restricted only by light pollution and disturbance), and brightness allowing snap shot colour photographing and live video recording. The design reserves the potential to be up-graded and customized. After almost 400 years of telescope development, we now have a revolutionary breakthrough now capable of reshaping telescopes science and make revolutionary optical devices to shrink football size telescopes to a view finder, and become a pair of glasses.
The Impossible Made Possible – As our technological accomplishments shape the future, we find ways to make the impossible possible. We constantly improve present technology by making them smaller and more efficient. Oftentimes, smaller more integrated designs increase the broad category of efficiencies. We’re now capable of producing instruments on a microscopic scale, with the exception of the optical telescope. Optical telescope is the only tool that actually grows in size rather then shrink. As we progress in research and development of these instruments, they grow bigger in size with each new creation. It is every astronomer dream to have access to a high resolving power telescope, yet small enough to be mobile.
However, it is embedded in our heads that we are not able to increase resolution with decreased size in a single design. In relation to this, engineers continue to build bigger and larger instruments, producing monsters and giants. The reason Miniature Size Telescope is deemed hopeless lies not only with optical science, but also with unclear comprehension of the principle of light. We still do not understand the intricate interaction involved in both seeing and shooting images, until today. It is for this uncertainty, why we still use two different theories of light. Light is seen as a particle that accelerates from point A to point B, and light can also be seen as waves that transmit by way of wave motion. Where one concept fails to make sense, another is implemented. Mini Size Telescope is base on ‘Unify Theory of Light’.
The Science – Our eyes are very unique: a young person’s pupil dilates between 7 and 2 millimeters, yet, the eye posses the ability to view images several thousands meters in diameter. Our wide field of view offers convincing evidence that we view converging image rays and not parallel beams. Converging beams describe rays that convert towards some point. Therefore, image carried by these rays decrease their cross sectional area with space travel. Images collected by the greatest telescope aperture, actually enters the couple millimeters of our eyes. Small sight angle (true field) at seconds of a degree, so small the mind finds it difficult to isolate the details they feature for recognition, when they are factored into our full field of view. These small-angles of advice get compressed within our large field of view, and seem to be just a little spot or become invisible.
Nevertheless, magnification provides the means by which little sight angles are converted to larger ones. A refractor telescope with an aperture of 30 millimeters and 120 millimeters focal length (focal ratio f/4), offering a magnifying power of 5x times and will have an exit pupil of 5 millimeters. This is a really bright telescope, tapping near the maximum of 7 millimeters opening of the student. If a second telescope was constructed, having identical aperture size of 30 millimeters, but have a focal length of 1200 millimeters (f/40). Instead of a 5 millimeters exit pupil, such telescope will now have an exit pupil of only 0.5 millimeter. From the identical formula, to obtain a 50x times magnifying power and an exit pupil of 5 millimeters, the aperture needed is 300 millimeters.
Refractor telescopes can’t obtain a 7 millimeters exit student without being affected by aberrations. So as to overcome this, telescope designers attempt to allocate a balance between brightness and magnification. Resolving power describes this equilibrium. The compromise will reduce brightness, but increase magnification power and image clarity by exactly the same proportion. The ocular plays an significant role in finalizing the picture of the apparent field. They are capable of influencing field of view, West Melbourne Squirrel Removal, magnification, and exit pupil (brightness). From this case, one can see that magnification is inversely proportional the diameter of the exit pupil, and exit pupil is directly proportional to brightness.
From the larger is better formulation, we know that by increasing the aperture of the objective, we could increase the exit pupil and therefore the brightness of the image. In designing optical systems, the optical engineer must make tradeoffs in controlling aberrations to accomplish the desired outcome. Aberrations are any errors that result in the imperfection of a picture. Such errors can result from design or manufacture or both.
Achromatic lenses are designed to reduce color aberration generated whenever white light is refracted, but with the best designs, color aberration cannot be totally eliminated. Color aberration also contains a secondary effect known as the secondary spectrum. The longer the focal ratio, the fainter the secondary spectrum becomes. Color aberration restricts most refractors into a focal ratio of f/15. Reflectors, which will be less influenced by color aberration, has focal ration of f/5 for industrial design and f/2.5 for professional layouts. Within known telescope design, the various conditions necessary for picture perfection is integrated, thus forcing engineers to compromise to obtain a close balance that will render the best possible picture.
What if magnification, focus, and brightness can be separated? The new formula for âEUR~Miniature Size Telescopes’ isolates all the factors and allow each to be independently tuned for optimum efficiency.
The Need for Magnifying Power- “The Overwhelmingly Large Telescope (Owl) is an wonderful project, which requires international work. This enormous telescope main mirror will be more than 100 meters in diameters and will have resolution 40 times better than the Hubble Space Telescope.
The demand for greater magnifying power began with the Galilean design. Research and experiments to improve the telescope’s magnification shows that growth in magnification power is directly proportional to the difference in the focal length of the objective and the ocular (eyepiece), where the ocular focal length is the shorter of the two. The race to construct the most effective telescope started at an early age in telescope growth. The best minds at the time compete to dominate the shaping of the new technology.
In this age, telescope tubes were created very long. Occasionally, these tubes reach span that leaves them unstable. In some cases the tubes were removed from the instrument’s design. Tubeless telescopes were called aerial telescopes. As telescope Engineers compete to develop more powerful telescopes, they encountered a secondary issue that limits the length and magnification of those ancient ‘refractor’ telescope designs. They notice that pictures became darken with growth magnification. Some how, magnification was decreasing the amount of light entering or exiting the telescope lenses. The explanation for this phenomenon, was that enough light was not exiting the telescope’s ocular, as enough light wasn’t been collected at the objective. An increase in the aperture size increases the exit pupil and the problem of dark image with magnification was solved.
At this stage in telescope growth, just Keplerian and Galilean ‘refractor’ telescopes were invented. Lens making was in its early stages and it was hard to fabricate quality lenses. Large aperture lenses were even a bigger challenge. Refractor telescope shortly reach its’ size limitation, but now that the next section to the formulation for high resolving power is famous, reflector telescope of many variations was born.
To date, almost 400 years later, the same formula is still used. Modem improvements only increase the quality of the optics now use, where alteration minimized aberrations. We can now build larger telescopes with resolving power and brightness educated possible in the time of Galileo, but the formula used in creating these modem instruments is the same as the oldest designs-bigger is better. The bigger is better formulation is not without limitations. Reflectors are not influenced by secondary spectrum effect. Focal ratio in the assortment of ff2.5 is reasonable when requiring exit pupil near 7 millimeters. However, any effort to increase magnification within these reflector telescopes while maintaining equilibrium, will require growth in the aperture and the focal length in the exact same proportion. It’s these design features that makes the phrase âEUR~bigger is better’ so persuasive.
Previous Limitations – Understanding of the principle of light has rewarded us with the development of modern optical technologies. The current article is written to present a breakthrough in research and development of Little Powerful Telescopes. Most major telescope generates will inform you that magnification isn’t of significant importance; and that brightness is a more pronounce concern a purchaser should have when shopping for a telescope. Magnification and brightness are equally important for viewing and shooting distant images, but the most important factor in rendering details in a picture, is focus. Of all of the basic principles involve in capturing an image, focus is less known. The awareness of a picture focal point and the way to achieve a focus image is easily calculated, but what would be the electrodynamics interactions which written a focus picture is still unanswered.
All optical devices are design around focus; hence it will always be a top priority in the formation of clear image. Magnification and brightness are of secondary importance, they are the result after focus is reached. It is the critical distance of attention that determine the maximum brightness and magnification at which an image will be clearly seen. Magnification refers to the action of converting smaller sight angles (true field) into larger ones (apparent field), this provide change in the angle where the image rays are obtained, thus, tricking the brain into believing that the thing is either closer or bigger then it really is. If it was not for the need for attention, a single convex lens âEUR”a magnifier-would be a telescope capable of infinite zoom magnification, through the action of simply varying the space it is held from the eye. Unfortunately, however, there is a critical distant at which pictures are focus through one lens or even a system of lenses. This is also referred to as the critical distance of focus.
What’s focus? Webster’s Dictionary: fo-cus; is the distinctness or clarity with which an optical system leaves an image.
Early lens manufacturer, Jan Lippershey was experimenting with two different lenses when he discovered that the effect of distant magnification. He discovered that by holding a negative lens near the eye while holding a positive lens in alignment with the first, away from the eye, that remote objects seemed much nearer than they would with the naked eye. Even with today’s technology, telescope designers are still confronted with major design constraints and challenges that forge a compromise between telescope size, brightness, and image clarity. Scientists have always been puzzled by the nature of light. Sir Isaac Newton regards light as stream of tiny particles traveling in straight line. Dutch scientist Christian Huygens, on the other hand, believed that light consisted of waves in a substance known as the ether, which he assumed fill space, including a vacuum. Huygens concept became accepted as the better concept of both. Today, however, scientists think that light include a stream of tiny wave pockets of energy called photons.
The Bigger is Better Formula – “With a telescope which has 10 times the collecting area of every telescope ever built. You would be able to go down a few thousand times fainter than the faintest thing you see with todayâEUR~s telescopes.”
The formulation that shaped known telescopes over the centuries of growth is pretty basic, well known, and proven- bigger is better. This is the same as saying that larger aperture provides brighter image, while longer focal length provides greater magnification. Let’s put the formula into the test. Can large magnification be obtained without long focal length objective? Microscopes provide very large magnification with relatively short focal length objective. Is it possible to collect light without very large aperture size? Again, the answer is yes. Microscope also shows this. Why is it that microscopes give great magnification with adequate brightness in a relatively small size, while telescopes cannot? This shows that it isn’t the law of magnification nor brightness, but it the instrument’s design limitations that insist upon the concept that bigger is better. A fundamental Keplerian design telescope functions as a microscope when seen through the opposite end of the tube.
A global standard full size student microscope supplies as much as 400x magnifying power, yet this type of microscope consists of a tube less then 20 centimeter in length. Adequate light is reflected from its’ plain-o-convex mirror less than 7 centimeters in diameter. So as to obtain identical brightness and magnifying power in a telescope, focal ratio of f/2.5 is advised for an exit pupil near 7 millimeters. Such telescope will require an aperture of 320 centimeters (3.2 meters) and a focal length of 800 centimeters (8 meters), calculating roughly with a 20 millimeters ocular. This is an increase of nearly 50x in size. Focusing of remote images is more challenging than focusing of close-up images. We can prove this using a single magnifying lens that is held close to the eye. Objects further then 2/3 the focal length of the lens will probably be out of focus.
All optical systems are design around focus. In order to vary magnification and brightness, focus has to be constant. We might compromise magnification for brightness and visa- a- verse, but we can never undermine focus. Therefore, rather than saying that magnification M is inversely proportional to brightness, it’s also true to say that magnification M is equal to concentrate divided by brightness B, where attention is a continuous D.
M = D/B
Magnification power (M) = concentrate constant (D) / Brightness (B) Within know optical telescope design, all three variables are incorporated. Focus has been the primary element for rendering a crystal clear image, whilst magnification and brightness both functions as a secondary element in the appearance of a focused picture. The resolving power is used to sum up the performance of a telescope. It is created by the telescope’s ability to imprint details within an image. Magnifying a picture involve stretching these dots. Light magnification is significantly different from image magnification, and magnifies by altering the angle of the obtained picture light.
But there is the breakthrough question, what if these 3 important elements could be isolated and separately tuned? Hm mm. Telescope engineering won’t be the same again, and the science of astronomy will explode.