• Question: how does the hubble telescope work and how are normal telescopes based on it ?

    Asked by bellalai to David, Luna, Mark, Melanie, Probash on 23 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: David Pyle

      David Pyle answered on 23 Mar 2011:

      The Hubble telescope collects light across a range of wavelengths. The images are particularly good, partly because the optics of the mirrors are very good, but partly because there’s none of the scattering and absorption of light energy that you get in the Earth’s atmosphere. Apart from the scale of the project, and its location (in orbit), I think that there’s nothing radically different in principle from ground-based telescopes. Take a look at the Hubble website for more – http://hubblesite.org/the_telescope/hubble_essentials/

    • Photo: Luna Munoz

      Luna Munoz answered on 23 Mar 2011:

      All I know is that it ‘sees’ in infrared light. I don’t know exactly how it does that. Normal telescopes work on reflecting or refracting light, but I don’t know if they use infrared light.

      I love looking at the pictures from Hubble though!! 😉

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