i understand how light and photography works, but it baffles me how telescopes can be so precise, and how they can ”collect” light from so far away. Idk please help me understand them a bit better
In: 5
Imagine someone is spraying a hose. You’re trying to collect water. You take your cup and hold it near the nozzle and it fills up really quickly. Great!
Now imagine you can’t get too close to them because there’s a wall (or you’re trying to be socially distant or something). You hold your cup out, but it barely gets any water in it. The hose is spraying everywhere, so the same size of cup can’t collect as much water from far away. One solution is to stay there holding the cup for longer. That’ll work, but it means you can do anything else for a long time. Another solution is to get a wider cup. Maybe you get a funnel and put that in your cup. This can collect water from a wider area and focus it down to your cup.
This is the basis for bigger telescopes. The light from distant objects gets weaker as it gets more spread out. To compensate and collect enough light, we either need to hold the telescope in the one spot for longer or use a bigger mirror/lens to funnel in more light.
Latest Answers