By Mike Luciuk

There is much emphasis, when discussing telescope optics, on the resolution capabilities of the instrument. The quantification of telescopic resolution is somewhat a subjective process. Examples are the Rayleigh, Dawes, and Sparrow criteria. For more detail on this topic, please refer to “Telescope Optics” by Rutten and van Venrooij. The well-known theoretical Rayleigh resolution limit, similar to Dawes but more restrictive, is based on diffraction [ α = 1.22 λ / D ] where α is the … Read the rest “Resolution and Seeing”