Why Hybrid Telescope Design?
Who doesn’t like best of the both world? Yes generally very hard to find in such a situation where we do get to have best of the both worlds. Well when it comes to telescopes, We have it.. a hybrid system, compound design or catadioptric as they call it which means “due to both the reflection and refraction”.
Refractor Telescopes
Refractor was the first configuration opticians came up with hundreds of years ago. Put two certain lenses parrallel to each other an the magic happens.. far away objects looks closer and bigger. A Refractor Telescope is born in 1608 and yes Not in 1609.
Reflector Telescopes
What a lens does is to gather light hitting upon all of its surface area and then concentrate it to a smaller area. That can also be done with a properly shaped curved mirror. Isaac Newton, yeah the gravity guy, is credited to design the first mirror based telescope. By the way, this idea that curve mirror can behave like lenses can be traced back to Hasan Ibn al-Haytham. So anyways a Reflector Telescope was born in 17th Century.
Compound Telescopes
Combining the science of refraction and reflection, a German Astronomy Bernhard Schmidt 1930 invented the first compound telescope by putting a Schmidt Plate (a refractor) at the front and a mirror (a reflector) at the back of the telescope. Hence the best of both worlds was born.
These days all professional and giant telescopes have multiple optics since adding more optical surfaces provides better control of the light rays.
Schmidt Cassegrain, Maksutov, Ritchey Criterion and many more are various configurations of mirrors and lenses exploiting the science of refraction and reflection. No one telescope is perfect for every object in the sky but these hybrids, which are most popular in the SCT design, are certainly your best choice in having your first telescope.
And here comes Zeds Astronomical Telescopes Company’s excellent support. We will ensure that whatever your Astro plans, dreams or wishes are, the equipment you buy from us will give you the best results.
