Abstract
A didactical activity aiming the theoretical and experimental study of the refractive telescope is proposed for undergraduate physics, technology and engineering courses. The matrix method was used for determining the telescope properties like distance between the lenses and magnification, as a function of the lenses focal lengths and the distance between the object and the telescope. In the experiments the optical setup was comprised by the telescope itself and an artificial eye, which in turn is comprised by a positive lens as the eye lens and a planar screen as the retina. The magnification was directly measured from the retina and compared with the measurements obtained with the help of the equations retrieved from the matrix method, concerning the uncertainty propagation.
Keywords:
telescope; matrix optics; magnification; thin lenses
