Astronomy and You: Telescope Building!

Published 2022-03-05
Join the FSS crew as we embody Vera Rubin as a child by making our own telescopes. Make sure to watch our book reading to learn more about how Vera Rubin changed astronomy!

Your telescope is a "refracting telescope," because it uses lenses to help gather more light than your eye could possibly do on its own. The scope uses two lenses to bend light, which makes an object appear closer than it really is. The size of the image produced by the telescope depends on the curvature of the lenses. Lenses with different curvatures will change the magnification of the telescope.

Materials:
Two empty paper towel tubes
Scissors
Masking tape
Paint, markers, or crayons to decorate your telescope
1 convex, 1 concave lens. (www.amazon.com/Amlong-Crystal-Premium-Optical-Diam…)

Activity Performed by: Antavia Parades
Recorded By: Alyssia Bell
Sponsored by: Metropolitan State University’s Institute for Community Engagement and Scholarship in partnership with the College of Sciences