Gregorian Telescope.

The idea of reflecting-telescopes received mention as early as 1639; but it was not until 1663 that Gregory described the instrument, formed of concave mirrors, which still bears his name. He was not, however, proficient in mechanics, and after some futile attempts to carry his theory into effect the exertion was relinquished. In 1673 Cassegrain revived the subject, and proposed a modification of the form previously indicated by Gregory. Instead of the small concave mirror, he substituted a convex mirror placed nearer the speculum; and this arrangement, though it made the telescope shorter, had the disadvantage of displaying objects in an inverted position. But the utility of these instruments was not demonstrated in a practical form until 1674, when Hooke, the clever mechanician, gave his attention to the subject and constructed the first one that was made of the kind.

Fig. 5.

Cassegrainian Telescope.

In the meantime (1672) Sir Isaac Newton had completed with his own hands a reflecting-telescope of another pattern. In this the rays from the large concave speculum were received by a small plane mirror fixed centrally at the other end of the tube, and inclined at an angle of 45°; so that the image was directed at right angles through an opening in the side, and there magnified by the eye-lens. But for a long period little progress was effected in regard to reflecting-telescopes, owing to the difficulty of procuring metal well adapted for the making of specula.

Fig. 6.

Newtonian Telescope.

In 1729 Mr. Chester Moor Hall applied himself to the study of refracting-telescopes and discovered that, by a combination of different glasses, the colouring of the images might be eliminated. It is stated that Mr. Hall made several achromatic glasses in 1733. A quarter of a century after this John Dollond independently arrived at the same result, and took out a patent for achromatic telescopes. He found, by experiments with prisms, that crown and flint glass operated unequally in regard to the divergency of colours induced by refraction; and, applying the principle further, he obtained a virtually colourless telescope by assorting a convex crown lens with a concave flint lens as the object-glass. Dollond also made many instruments having triple object-lenses, and in these it was supposed that previous defects were altogether obliterated. Two convex lenses of crown glass were combined with a concave lens of flint glass placed between them.