Telescopes
Telescopes are devices that help with the observation of distant objects, by viewing electromagnetic radiation. There are telescopes that study every wavelength of radiation emitted by objects in space, however the main ones are optical telescopes and radio telescopes.
Optical
Optical telescopes use lenses or mirrors to capture and magnify the images from distant objects. They can only view the visible spectrum with optical telescopes. There are two types of optical telescopes: reflection and refraction telescopes.
Refraction
A reflaction telescope uses lenses to magnify distant objects. However, because the alignment of these lenses is slightly different to the others, the image of stars and other distant objects appear fuzzy and distorted. Also, because lenses can only zoom so far, they are unusable when viewing distant objects.
Reflection
Reflection telescopes use a series of mirrors rather than lenses to magnify the image. Besides being able to magnify objects more than the conventional way with lenses, they also are not subject to the effect that makes images in refraction telescopes appear fuzzy and distorted. These two attributes are of huge benefit to these telescopes. However, due to the fact that the mirrors have to be aligned properly and such, these telescopes are much more expensive.
Radio Telescopes
Radio telescopes view radiation in the radio spectrum. Waves in this spectrum are naturally emitted by stars and other objects in space. These telescopes use a large dish and a radio receiver to detect radio waves. They are able to study invisble radiation in space, revealing objects that cannot be viewed with optical telescopes. This gives them a major advantage in discovering otherwise hidden objects in space. However, the ionosphere distorts some of these signals, making them inaccurate. The way that they get around this is by using large arrays of telescopes, to reduce the margin of error.
Optical
Optical telescopes use lenses or mirrors to capture and magnify the images from distant objects. They can only view the visible spectrum with optical telescopes. There are two types of optical telescopes: reflection and refraction telescopes.
Refraction
A reflaction telescope uses lenses to magnify distant objects. However, because the alignment of these lenses is slightly different to the others, the image of stars and other distant objects appear fuzzy and distorted. Also, because lenses can only zoom so far, they are unusable when viewing distant objects.
Reflection
Reflection telescopes use a series of mirrors rather than lenses to magnify the image. Besides being able to magnify objects more than the conventional way with lenses, they also are not subject to the effect that makes images in refraction telescopes appear fuzzy and distorted. These two attributes are of huge benefit to these telescopes. However, due to the fact that the mirrors have to be aligned properly and such, these telescopes are much more expensive.
Radio Telescopes
Radio telescopes view radiation in the radio spectrum. Waves in this spectrum are naturally emitted by stars and other objects in space. These telescopes use a large dish and a radio receiver to detect radio waves. They are able to study invisble radiation in space, revealing objects that cannot be viewed with optical telescopes. This gives them a major advantage in discovering otherwise hidden objects in space. However, the ionosphere distorts some of these signals, making them inaccurate. The way that they get around this is by using large arrays of telescopes, to reduce the margin of error.