A refracting telescope is a type of telescope that has a large thin lense at the front and a smaller thicker lense at the end where the eyepiece is. Refracting telescopes use lenses unlike reflecting telescopes that use mirrors to reflect the light. This is a good image of a refracting and reflecting telescope: [See related link]
A reflecting telescope uses mirrors while refracting telescopes uses lens. The refracting telescope also had chromatic aberration and bad resolution while the reflecting telescope had none of these.
A reflecting telescope is different from a refracting telescope because a reflecting telescope uses a concave lens, a plane mirror, and a convex lens. While a refracting telescope uses two lens.
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A reflecting telescope uses mirrors while refracting telescopes uses lens. The refracting telescope also had chromatic aberration and bad resolution while the reflecting telescope had none of these.
the reflecting telescope was!!
Refracting
"Optical", in this case, simply means that they work with light.
Size... a reflecting telescope with the same power as a refracting telescope is much shorter. This is because, in the reflecting telescope, the incoming light is bounced off mirrors (often more than once) which means the physical length is much shorter than an equivalent refracting model.
-- A refracting telescope must have a lens, otherwise it's not a refracting telescope. -- A reflecting telescope can be constructed without any lens, but if you intend to look through it, then you'll use a little lens for the eyepiece.
Radio
He invented the reflecting telescope. Galileo was the first to use the telescope for studies of the heavens.
"To build a large refracting telescope would require very strong supports to hold large enough lenses. These supports would tend to block out important light. So the refracting telescope is limited in its use. Today most large telescopes are reflecting telescopes." ~ BYU Home Study Astronomy course