Depending on what the lens a microscope uses, you can potentially see things on an atomic level. Electron microscopes use electrons from a filament source. The electrons are attracted through a column ( that contains a vacuum) to an anode while electromagnetic coils focus the beam. Electrons hit the observed objects and causes a radiation to be emitted. Depending on the radiation produced, a computer translate the counts to pixels and produces a gray scale image.
I have no idea how to explain telescopes. But I’m glad to talk a little about my work
Edit: whoops lens are was sort of a vague blanket term. Electromagnetic coils act as a sort of “lens” by condensing the beam. So for you jerk offs to shit on my explanation, you go ahead and explain the electron microscope in laymen’s terms
Microscopes are generally used to focus on really close things and magnify them a LOT. Because they have a small lens, they need a lot of light shining through/on to the object.
Telescopes usually don’t have as much magnification, but have much bigger lenses to catch more light, as (apart from one notable exception) starlight has spread out a lot by the time it gets here and so stars are pretty faint.
Apart from this, the main difference is the focal point – really close vs infinity.
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