A telescope is a device that makes a far away object appear very close.Many more stars can be seen with the telescope than the unaided eye.
The telescope is an instrument that collects and analyzes the radiation emitted by distant sources. The most common type is the optical telescope, a collection of lenses and/or mirrors that is used to allow the viewer to see distant objects more clearly by magnifying them or to increase the effective brightness of a faint object. In a broader sense, telescopes can operate at most frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum , from radio waves to gamma rays. The one characteristic all telescopes have in common is the ability to make distant objects appear to be closer (from the Greek tele meaning far, and skopein meaning to view).
The first optical telescope was probably constructed by the Dutch lens-grinder, Hans Lippershey , in 1608. The following year, Galileo Galilei built the first astronomical telescope from a tube containing two lenses of different focal lengths aligned on a single axis (the elements of this telescope are still on display in Florence, Italy). With this telescope and several following versions, Galileo made the first telescopic observations of the sky and discovered lunar mountains, four of Jupiter's moons, sunspots, and the starry nature of the Milky Way. Since then, telescopes have increased in size and improved in image quality. Computers are now used to aid in the design of large, complex telescope systems.
The primary function of a telescope is that of light gathering. As will be seen below, resolution limits on telescopes would not call for an aperture much larger than about 30 in (76 cm). However, there are many telescopes around the world with diameters several times this. The reason is that larger telescopes can see further because they can collect more light. For example, the 200 in (508 cm) diameter reflecting telescope at Mt. Palomar, California can gather 25 times more light than the 40 in (102 cm) Yerkes telescope at Williams Bay, Wisconsin, the largest refracting telescope in the world. The more light a telescope can gather, the more distant the objects it can detect, and therefore larger telescopes increase the size of the observable universe.
Unfortunately, scientists are not able to increase the resolution of a telescope simply by increasing the size of the light-gathering aperture to as large a size as needed. Disturbances and nonuniformities in the atmosphere limit the resolution of telescopes to somewhere in the range of 0.5–2 arc seconds, depending on the location of the telescope. Telescope sights on top of mountains are popular because the light reaching the instrument has to travel through less air, and consequently the image has a higher resolution. However, a limit of 0.5 arc seconds corresponds to an aperture of only 12 in (30 cm) for visible light: larger telescopes do not provide increased resolution but only gather more light.
Magnification is not the most important characteristic of telescopes as is commonly thought. The magnifying power of a telescope is dependent on the type and quality of eyepiece being used. The magnification is given simply by the ratio of the focal lengths of the objective and eyepiece. Thus, a 0.8 in (2 cm) focal length eyepiece used in conjunction with a 39 in (100 cm) focal length objective will give a magnification of 50. If the field of view of the eyepiece is 20°, the true field of view will be 0.4°.
Most large telescopes built before the twentieth century were refracting telescopes because techniques were readily available to polish lenses. Not until the latter part of the nineteenth century were techniques developed to coat large mirrors, which allowed the construction of large reflecting telescopes.