Questions tagged [optics]
Behaviour and properties of light, and its interaction with matter, particularly in detection of light.
45 questions
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Are they really sure this isn't an Airy disk? How was that ruled out?
Are they sure this is a spherical shell of gas, and not just an Airy pattern?
Image from: https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0906b/
I get 180 pixels from center to the first minimum, and 72 pixels ...
2
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0answers
37 views
+100
Does Arecibo's secondary optics compensate when viewing farther away from vertical?
In the beginning of the short YouTube video Arecibo Uncut: Under the Dish with Phil Perillat it is mentioned that while dish antennas are usually a parabola, the problem is that a static parabola ...
2
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2answers
29 views
Arago Spot in the Shadows of Celestial Bodies
Recently, I've watched this video by Veritasium describing Poisson's Spot, or the Arago Spot. It is explained in the video that near circular (or spherical) objects can produce this optical effect, ...
3
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1answer
92 views
What is the cause of all of these sharp, concentric rings around bright stars in this HST image?
ESA's HST page heic1819 — Photo Release; Hubble reveals cosmic Bat Shadow in the Serpent’s Tail is of course beautiful and stunning, but my eyes are drawn to the diffraction artifacts of the bright ...
0
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1answer
132 views
Why does the sun appear 13x bigger through diffraction in Voyager 1 image from 1990, but not from Earth? [closed]
The sun in the Voyager 1 photo here from 1990 appears 13x bigger than its diameter, diffraction of course. On Earth, photographs of the sun do not make it appear 13x bigger. Why?
A description of the ...
6
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1answer
122 views
Why are there optical differences between sunrise and sunset?
I've noticed that sunrises are not reverse sunsets regarding the sky hues and lighting.
Sunrises always start pinkish and end with a glorious yellow sunshine.
On the other hand as the sun sets ...
6
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2answers
78 views
Where exactly is the modification that first corrected the spherical aberration in Hubble's primary mirror?
The April 2015 CBS News article How NASA fixed Hubble's flawed vision - and reputation describes the modification taken to the Hubble Space Telescopes by the Space Shuttle that was used to correct for ...
10
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3answers
517 views
Has anyone ever tried to make a simple telescope using ice?
I grew up with long cold winters, and saw a lot of remarkably transparent ice formed by refreezing meltwater, both in puddles and ponds, and in large icicles. I'd always thought about making optical ...
2
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1answer
40 views
What is a pupil slicer, and how does it work with anamorphic optics in VLT's ESPRESSO Echelle spectrograph?
This excellent answer points to ESPRESSO, - Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations. From there I looked at the Instrument Description and Performance page.
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1answer
118 views
Why does the sky look like it has three suns in this video? [closed]
Check out @natalie9280’s Tweet:
long story short, friday morning at around 6:40am i looked outside and i saw three suns.
i checked to see if there was an eclipse and i could[n't] find anything.
...
3
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1answer
90 views
How to understand Kepler telescope under large aspherical wavefront
To my understanding, a Kepler telescope is designed to conjugate one plane to another. For example scale down/up the incoming wavefront onto a wavefront sensor for measurement. It works well for small ...
2
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1answer
81 views
Telescope and its construction
I want to build a reflecting telescope in my home. I've attached a drawing of my plan that contains some explanations of what I understand so far, and highlights the parts of the design for which I ...
3
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0answers
47 views
Is it possible to model a solar thermal concentrator using Zernike polynomials?
This question might seem a bit off-topic, but I guess there are a lot of people here that know about optics, telescopes, etc.
I would like to simulate solar thermal systems that focus solar ...
2
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1answer
66 views
How well can the Sun's surface be resolved by an observatory?
There's no lack of photons, how well could a telescope resolve Sun spots and other surface features of the Sun? How would a high resolution Solar (space) telescope differ from for example Hubble which ...
7
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5answers
241 views
Are there any mirrors in space?
We have encountered galaxies that act as lenses, magnifying the light coming from behind them. This is super fascinating and it makes me wonder what other optic tools we might have at our disposal.
...
3
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1answer
311 views
How do tip tilt mirrors correct distortion in adaptive optics?
I'm currently trying to learn about how adaptive optics correct the blurriness caused by atmospherical seeing effects. This is my current understanding of how adaptive optics works (trying to offer ...
3
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3answers
428 views
Projecting an image of the sun / eclipse
This might be an astronomy.stackexchange.com question, but I think it is more in line with a camera obscura.
During the last eclipse I didn't plan ahead and grabbed some lousy toy "spy" telescope we ...
2
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1answer
114 views
Why is this HST WFPC2 image so much fuzzier than the WFC3 image of the same field?
I was looking at the comparison of 2007 and 2015 HST images of the "disappearing" star N6946-BH1 in Phys.org's article Collapsing star gives birth to a black hole. The 2007 images is from the WFPC2 ...
0
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1answer
87 views
What telescope is this, and how does it work?
In the excellent chemistry series of Periodic Videos' episode Amazing piece of metal (speculum) there is an interesting showing and discussion of Isaac Newton's first telescope.
At ...
4
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1answer
654 views
Constructing a periscope/telescope - trouble with lenses
Not sure if this is the best place for this, maybe physics would be a better fit, but I'm trying to build a periscope and am running into an issue.
Traditional mirror periscopes work well, but when ...
0
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1answer
104 views
What could have made a satellite appear to move side to side while near the horizon?
Yesterday while coming out of a restaurant my wife and I noticed what appeared be a satellite passing quite high in the sky. Based on the location, time, and brightness this appears to have been a ...
1
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1answer
241 views
Lunar terminator illusion
Sometimes, you can see the Moon high in the night sky, which is illuminated from the side where Sun goes down but slightly from above. It is paradoxical when Sun hangs at the lower level above the ...
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2answers
90 views
Is there a spectrum of polarization? Does polarization vary depending on wavelength, from one and the same source?
Is it possible, and does it occur naturally, that the light from the same source is simultaneously polarized differently at different wavelengths? Light can be polarized by interstellar magnetic ...
3
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1answer
115 views
Can a telescope be built to focus on a point source star?
If a Kepler telescope were built to focus on one point source star at a time, would it provide more information, or did Kepler capture virtually every photon from any given star anyway?
In order to ...
2
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1answer
453 views
What is the faintest magnitude a telescope can see?
This website claims:
The space telescope can detect objects as faint as 31st magnitude...
It's referring to Hubble, but does not cite any source or math. How do you calculate the faintest (...
3
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2answers
15k views
How to make a telescope for viewing planets, moon and DSOs using a convex lens of aperture 100 mm and focal length 200 mm and other lenses at home?
I wanted to make a telescope with DIY things lying around in home. I read up that the aperture was a very important aspect and thus bought a convex lens with 100mm aperture and 200mm focal length, to ...
1
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1answer
309 views
Magnification of a telescope
I took an image of Jupiter through my 8" Dobsonian Telescope, attaching a DSLR and a 1.25" Barlow Lens where the eyepiece goes, as shown in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reFxoF3XoaU
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2answers
144 views
What is the longest observable wavelength of light using an optical telescope?
How far outside the visible spectrum could an optical telescope feasibly operate?
3
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3answers
1k views
Dish antenna as parabolic mirror for OPTICAL telescope?
Can I use a chrome painted dish TV antenna as a parabolic reflector for my optical telescope? Given that glass mirrors are quite expensive, I am thinking of using a Dish TV antenna and coating its ...
3
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2answers
659 views
Is it practical to hand grind a convex parabolic or hyperbolic mirror?
I know it's practical to hand grind a convex spherical mirror and that it's practical to make a concave parabolic mirror from a spherical one. But as I understand it, the procedure for doing so depend ...
3
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1answer
480 views
What would be the maximum theoretically possible angular resolution?
I have studied some basic astronomy, but I have difficulty conceptualizing the physics of luminosity and optics. We use electromagnetic spectra to detect existence and properties of distant planets, ...
16
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1answer
420 views
Why does a mirror bent 'like a potato chip' allow space telescopes to be smaller and have a wider field of view?
I was browsing NASA featured items and came across this - Out With the Old, In With the New: Telescope Mirrors Get New Shape
Called freeform optics, this emerging mirror technology, brought about
...
3
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2answers
567 views
Astronomical telescope making
I am thinking about making a telescope. I have a 100cm focal length lens which I can use as objective lens in my telescope. So which is the best focal length I can use as eyepiece in my astronomical ...
6
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2answers
114 views
What makes small interferometers useful? Like NIRISS on JWST
NIRISS is an instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope. It has a "non-redundant aperture mask" which obviously covers most of the area of the sensor. It seems to be advantageous for high contrast ...
8
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1answer
2k views
Theoretically, what is the biggest optical telescope that may exist?
Recently, I read yet another news about E-ELT. It will have 39.3-metre-diameter segmented primary mirror. And I was interested in the next question:
Theoretically, what size of the primary mirror (...
4
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1answer
134 views
Could spy satellites use laser guide stars (for adaptive optics)?
Are sodium lasers useful for Earth observing space telescopes/spy satellites?
7
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2answers
334 views
Why aren't secondary mirrors offset to get rid of diffraction spikes due to the support vanes?
Some kind of ellipsoidal shape mirror could reflect to a secondary mirror which is not in the way of the infalling light. Two advantages are immediately obvious. The primary mirror would not be partly ...
3
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4answers
2k views
Enhanced Star-Gazing with Special Glasses
I watched a video yesterday on how telescopes not only magnify images but also increase the amount of light entering into your eye, allowing you to see things not normally visible with naked eye. ...
4
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1answer
308 views
Is it possible to steer the sight of a Liquid Mirror Telescope using a plain mirror scheme? If yes, why hasn't it been done?
I have read about Liquid Mirror Telescopes in a number of places, and according to these sources, a major disadvantage of these telescopes is that they can only "see" straight up.
In a nutshell, the ...
3
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1answer
233 views
Why can't the surfaces of stars be observed?
If I'm correctly informed, only three stars: Sol, Betelgeuse and Altair have surfaces which have been resolved by telescopes. All other stars are only point sources of light, even in the greatest of ...
2
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1answer
59 views
Adaptive Optics?
I get the general idea of adaptive optics. The light from an object distorted by differences in the earth's atmosphere, and a telescope with AO tries to compensate for this distortion by various ...
5
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1answer
496 views
How do telescopes “zoom” and change angle of view?
Images from the Hubble Space Telescope have widely different angles of view. Is this only the result of composing multiple images, or can the telescope itself change its "zooming" optically, ...
2
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1answer
699 views
Can the Sun be used as a point source of light to achive better focus?
There's a limit to how well sunlight can be focused by a parabolic reflector or a lens because the Sun is not a point source. I wonder if the sunlight could be engineered to work as if it was (much ...
7
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2answers
667 views
Why does e.g. Hubble's secondary mirror not block part of the picture?
The SOHO observatory has an opaque object in the light path that blocks the direct light from the sun making it possible to observe the corona.
Hubble and many other telescopes have a big primary ...
4
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1answer
642 views
How does a Bahtinov mask work?
For focusing the image of a telescope, one can use a Bahtinov mask. How does this mask work, and how did Mr Bahtinov get the idea to cut such a peculiar shape? Is it possible for me to design my own ...
