an optical device used to magnify distant objects by gathering much larger amounts of light than is possible with the human eye. The larger a telescope is the better it will be at detecting faint objects because of the increased amount of light it can take in. There are two types of telescope, reflecting and refracting. Reflecting telescopes have a concave mirror to grasp light and focus it onto a plane. The first one was designed by Newton. There are several types of reflecting telescope, each of which uses different types and arrangements of mirrors and lenses to produce the image. The most important are Cassegrain, Newton, Coude and Primary telescopes. Refracting telescopes use a convex mirror to grasp light and focus it onto the image plane, and this was the system used in the first telescope, invented by Galileo.
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