Magnification+Lab

=Telescope Lab= 3/25/2010
 * Participants**:Trevor Wood


 * Brief Description of Experiment:** In this experiment we used three lens to create a telescope that magnified an image from an infinate distance away. In order to create the telescope we first got an objective lens with a focal length of 40cm. The objective lens was used to gather the light from the observed object across the room and produce a real image, which was inverted. A second lens was then added to the optics bench at a distance equal to the sum of the focus lengths of the first and second lens. This second lens magnified the image, but the image remained inverted. In order to get the image erected a third and final lens was needed. This third lens was placed at the sum of focal lengths of the second and third lens, and at this distance the lens successfully flipped the orientation of the image and gave us the magnified image that we were looking for. Below is a computer-aided sketch of what my telescope looked like and a link to the document on Google SketchUp (the program used to create the reproduction of the telescope). It should be known that this sketch is not 100 percent accuracte due to human error when calculating the focus lengths of each lens:



This is an image of what our telescope actually looked like: Below are two magnified images as seen through our telescope (as you can see they are a bit blurry, this is due to using a camera to capture these images, when actually looking through the telescope the image is much clearer): Calculation// || focal length = (Object distance x Image distance) / (Image distance +Object distance ) ||
 * Data**:
 * Sample Calculations:**
 * //Focal Length


 * Conclusion**: I believe that this experiment produced a very valid and reprodcuible result, because a correctly functioning telescope was created, which produced accurate magnifications of specific images. When creating the telescope there may have been a few tiny errors that could change the magnification slightly. One way is the way that we used paper tubes as a way to block the light from entering the telescope from any direction except through the first lens, and by using this material they could have possibly been small gaps between the lens and the tubing. Another problem that could have caused small magnification errors was how easily the lens could move on the meterstick, this could cause the lens to move even the slightest amount while constructing the telescope. Even with these small errors we still produced a telescope that worked fine and that was pretty accurate.