Reflecting Telescopes

OPT provides an exceptionally wide selection of Reflecting Telescopes that come in a number of varieties suited for a diverse range of applications. A reflector refers to any optical design that uses one or more curved mirrors to reflect light and form an image. This results in images that are free of chromatic aberration, which is one of the main issues to plague models that do not utilize reflecting designs. One of the main benefits of the reflector design is that it enables a very wide diameter objective. This means that reflectors are capable of being made much larger than comparable refractors, making this design easier to gather light.

Advantages & Disadvantages of Reflecting Telescopes

Advantages: One of the biggest positives of reflecting telescopes is that it's free of chromatic aberration. Which means you will usually get very crisp and clean images and views. The cost is also one of the advantages of going with a reflector. You can usually get a larger aperture telescope for a low cost when compared to other telescope types. Using mirrors helps with this. Reflectors use mirrors instead of lenses to collect light. Because mirrors have only one reflective surface, they are easier to construct than lenses.

Disadvantages: These telescopes can tend to have an open tube design which can cause problems. With these, the mirrors must be cleaned periodically and also collimated or realigned. Without doing that you may see blurry images. Larger apertures usually are very big and can be difficult to transport from place to place. Most people do not consider this when purchasing a telescope but it is something that needs to be considered as most people have issues with this.