Telescopes

Resolution, diffraction, and what limits how much detail a telescope can see. Understand the relationship between aperture, wavelength, and angular resolution.

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Telescope Resolution: Sharper Eyes

Key idea: This demo shows how telescope resolution depends on wavelength and aperture, and how atmospheric seeing can blur images from the ground.

This demo shows how telescope resolution depends on wavelength and aperture, and how atmospheric seeing can blur images from the ground.

experimental Telescopes ≤10 min Both

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Key concepts

Learning goals aggregated from all exhibits in this topic.

Distinguish magnification from resolution.
Explain how aperture affects the ability to separate close objects.
Connect resolution limits to diffraction qualitatively.

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