why the mirror of a telescope need to be so heavy and thick ?

Question

why the mirror of a telescope need to be so heavy and thick ?

In: Engineering

Answer 1

Basically to avoid warping but there is a limit to how thick it needs to be. There is a trade off in the thicker it is the longer it takes to cool to outside temperature. Amateur telescopes mirrors are thicker per inch than large professional scopes to be able to be held tightly in a smaller scope.