Telescopes Project
In this project we learned about the different types of telescopes, reflecting and refracting, and the specific telescopes that fit into those catagories. We learned about Keplerian, Galilean (both refracting) and Newtonian (a reflecting). Then after we learned about the pros and cons of all of them, we were put into partnerships and told to chose which telescope we wanted to create, and not everybody could make the same one. After the building process was finished we then tested them out by taking pictures through them (as you can see below) and started to prepare for exhibition.
The type of telescope my partner and I built is called a Newtonian. A Newtonian is a reflecting telescope, which means it uses mirrors to reflect an image back to your eye. This is different than the other two options, Galilean and Keplerian, which are refracting telescopes and use lenses to get the image to your eye. We chose this telescope because of it's little to no chromatic aberration and it's relatively nice magnification. Chromatic aberration affects the colors of the image that you're looking at. For example, the more blue light there is, the less it bends when it passes through a lens, so the farther away from the lens it focuses. So, if the red light is in perfect focus , but the green and violet light aren't, it will result in a blue or purple halo around the image.
The type of telescope my partner and I built is called a Newtonian. A Newtonian is a reflecting telescope, which means it uses mirrors to reflect an image back to your eye. This is different than the other two options, Galilean and Keplerian, which are refracting telescopes and use lenses to get the image to your eye. We chose this telescope because of it's little to no chromatic aberration and it's relatively nice magnification. Chromatic aberration affects the colors of the image that you're looking at. For example, the more blue light there is, the less it bends when it passes through a lens, so the farther away from the lens it focuses. So, if the red light is in perfect focus , but the green and violet light aren't, it will result in a blue or purple halo around the image.
On the left is a picture of a flower that I took through my telescope. Though it is kind of blurry you can see there is no chromatic aberration and you can see the purple of the flower.
On the right is a picture of our scaled drawing of our telescope. It shows the different parts of it such as the mirrors and the eyepiece and the different lengths that are associated with them.
My job for exhibition was originally to work on the telescope exhibition but truthfully I worked more on the headlamp window for the Into The Wild wall. Towards the beginning of the exhibition prep I worked a lot with the telescope exhibition group, figuring out the layout and the materials we needed, I even went and got cardboard from the dumpster. But after that I was mostly helping the headlamp group with what they needed to finish. During this exhibition I learned that there's a lot that goes into exhibition and that it's really important for everyone to stay on task and be doing what they're supposed to be doing so that the whole thing runs smoothly. I think that for the most part people were doing that and I think that exhibition went really well. It was worth all the work that we all put into it and it was really cool to be able to talk to everyone about the things we've been working on.