telescopeA telescope was an optical instrument used to observe, aim, and measure distant objects. The angular magnification was generally greater than 1. In a broad sense, it also included astronomical instruments that observed electromagnetic waves invisible to the human eye. It was commonly used in ground observation, astronomical observation, astrophotography, space exploration, and other fields.
In 1608, Hans Lieber, a Dutch glasses merchant, accidentally discovered that two lenses could be used to see distant scenes, making the world's first binoculars. In 1609, the Italian physicist, galilei galilei, was inspired to make the first refraction telescope. The telescope began to be used in the field of astronomy. Later, many scientists, such as Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, Cassegrain, Bernhard Foldomar Schmidt, etc., optimized and improved it, producing refraction, reflection, catadioprism, and many other types.
After more than 400 years of development, the telescope had become more powerful and had a longer observation distance. In modern times, with the development of science and technology, telescopes were no longer limited to ground observation. They began to enter space, and new types of telescopes such as radio telescopes and space telescopes appeared. It was mainly composed of optical system, mechanical structure, pointing system, image acquisition system, electronic system, etc. By magnifying the angle of distant objects, the human eye could see details with smaller angular distance. It could also send the light beam collected by the objective lens into the human eye, allowing people to see dark objects that could not be seen before. The typical models were the Very Large telescope, the China Sky Eye, the Hubble Space telescope, the Big Bear Lake Solar telescope, etc.
When it came to choosing a telescope, novices often made mistakes. For example, they thought that the higher the magnification, the clearer it was. In fact, the optical configuration was the real deciding factor. There were fixed-power and variable-power binoculars. The fixed-power binoculars had stable imaging, a large field of view, and a strong sense of comfort. For example, a 10X50 binoculars represented 10x amplification and 50 apertures. A variable-power binoculars had a multiple range that could be adjusted. For example, 10 - 20*50 meant that the multiple could be adjusted between 10 - 20 times.
Astronomical telescopes were astronomical observation devices that collected celestial radiation and determined the direction of the radiation source. For more than 300 years before the first radio telescope was built in the 1930s, astronomical telescopes were basically equivalent to optical telescopes. According to the principle of imaging, optical telescopes could be divided into refraction telescope, reflection telescope, and catadioptical telescope. There are many famous telescopes in the world, such as China's 500-meter spherical radio telescope. Fast (China Sky Eye) was the world's largest fixed antenna radio telescope by 2023, and the Greenbank Radio telescope (Gbt) was the largest mobile antenna radio telescope on Earth by 2024. The Hobby Eberly telescope, the Caique telescope, the Canary Grand telescope, the South African Grand telescope, and the Atacama Large Millimeter Wave Array were also famous telescopes. They each had different characteristics, functions, construction locations, and funding sources.
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