Astronomy
During my fall semester of senior year, I ran an Astronomy workshop at Inspiring minds. I taught students about the different kinds of telescoped and how they work to achieve a similar goal. I also taught them about different colleges that offer Astronomy as a major as well as the different careers that can be pursued with such a degree. The class ended up being a lot bigger than expected, I had 15 students participate in the workshop. I ended up teaching the class how to make a refractor telescope out of magnify glasses and PVC pipe. Everyone got to make there own. I arranged for the hole class to go on a field trip to the Seagrave observatory that night as well. I volunteer at the Seagrave observatory all the time and it is the regular meeting place for the Skyscrapers group. I arranged for a few of the professional astronomers in the group to stop by the observatory and teach my group a little more about the stars and how to find certain celestial objects in the sky. We ended up staying at the observatory pretty late and the guest speakers let everyone use the telescopes in the roll-off shed. It was a pretty cool experience especially since I got to share my passion with others. A lot of the student who went on the field trip never been to an observatory before so I feel pretty happy that I had the chance to expose them to such an interesting field of science. I plan on taking everyone back to the observatory once the nice weather comes back around.
how does a telescope work?
A telescope is an instrument that makes a far away object look a lot closer than it actually is. The two most common types of telescopes are Refractors and Reflectors. A Refractor uses a glass lens while a Reflector uses mirrors. All telescopes are designed with a specific device (Objective lens or Primary mirror) that is used to collect the light from a distant object out in space. This device than brings this light from a distant object to a point of focus. The eyepiece lens than takes this light from the point of focus and magnifies the image so that it takes up more space on your retina, creating the illusion that the object is closer than it actually is.
When you combine the objective lens or the primary mirror with the eyepiece, you have yourself a telescope. The basic idea is to collect lots of light to form a bright image inside the telescope, and then use something like a magnifying glass to enlarge the bright image so that it takes up more space on your retina.
A telescope has two general properties:
· How well it can collect light
· How much it can magnify the image
A telescope’s ability to collect light is directly related to the diameter of the lens or mirror (the aperture). The larger the aperture, the more light the telescope collects. Larger aperture also= a brighter final image.
The telescopes ability to enlarge (magnify) an image depends on the combination of lenses used. The eyepiece performs the magnification. Since any magnification can be achieved by almost any telescope by using different eyepieces, aperture is a more important feature than magnification
When you combine the objective lens or the primary mirror with the eyepiece, you have yourself a telescope. The basic idea is to collect lots of light to form a bright image inside the telescope, and then use something like a magnifying glass to enlarge the bright image so that it takes up more space on your retina.
A telescope has two general properties:
· How well it can collect light
· How much it can magnify the image
A telescope’s ability to collect light is directly related to the diameter of the lens or mirror (the aperture). The larger the aperture, the more light the telescope collects. Larger aperture also= a brighter final image.
The telescopes ability to enlarge (magnify) an image depends on the combination of lenses used. The eyepiece performs the magnification. Since any magnification can be achieved by almost any telescope by using different eyepieces, aperture is a more important feature than magnification