Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/229

Rh illustrates the essential difference between refracting and reflecting telescopes, may be performed by any one who possesses a reading glass and a magnifying hand mirror. In a room that is not too brightly illuminated pin a sheet of white paper on the wall opposite to a window that, by preference, should face the north, or away from the position of the sun. Taking first the reading glass, hold it between the window and the wall parallel to the sheet of paper, and a foot or more distant from the latter. By moving it to and fro a little you will be able to find a distance, corresponding to the focal length of the lens, at which a picture of the window is formed on the paper. This picture, or image, will be upside down, because the rays of light cross at the focus. By moving the glass a little closer to the wall you will cause the picture of the window to become indistinct, while a beautiful image of the houses, trees, or other objects of the outdoor world beyond, will be formed upon the paper. We thus learn that the distance of the image from the lens varies with the distance of the object whose image is formed. In precisely a similar manner an image is formed at the focus of the object glass of a refracting telescope.

Take next your magnifying or concave mirror, and detaching the sheet of paper from the wall, hold it nearly in front of the mirror between the latter and the window. When you have adjusted the distance to the focal length of the mirror, you will see an image of the window projected upon the paper, and by varying the distance, as before, you will be able to produce, at will, pictures of nearer or more remote objects. It is in this way that images are formed at the focus of the mirror of a reflecting telescope.

Now, you will have observed that the chief apparent difference between these two methods of forming an image of distant objects is that in the first case the rays of light, passing through the transparent lens, are brought to a focus on the side opposite to that where the real object is, while in the second case the rays, being reflected from the brilliant surface of the opaque mirror, come to a focus on the same side as that on which the object itself is. From this follows the most striking difference in the method of using refracting and reflecting telescopes. In the refractor the observer looks toward the object; in the reflector he looks away from it. Sir William Herschel made his great discoveries with his back to the sky. He used reflecting telescopes. This principle, again, can be readily illustrated by means of our simple experiment with a reading glass and a magnifying mirror. Hold the reading glass between the eye and a distant object with one hand, and with the other hand place a smaller lens such as a pocket magnifier, near the eye, and in line with the reading glass.