Resolving Power

Resolving power of a telescope
1 Objective
To determine the resolving power of a telescope and compare it with corresponding theoretical value.
2 Before you begin

While calculating dimensionless quantity (say x = y/z), make sure that units of y and z are same. Or,
simply convert all quantities to SI units to avoid any confusion.
3 Apparatus
Sodium light source, Microscope, Telescope, Measuring tape, Double slit holder, Micrometer slit.
4 Theory
Resolving power can be studied from given references [1, 2] or any standard text book. Important
points are discussed below:
• What you see through a telescope is not an actual image but it is a diffraction pattern of the
image. For example, if you focus the telescope at a point source of light, you will see the concentric
circles of different intensities and radii.
• This phenomena limits the ability to distinguish two nearby sources.
• The sources can be distinguished only when the primary maxima of diffraction patterns of both
the sources are significantly far away from each other.
• When sources are close enough that the resultant intensity of primary maxima in diffraction
pattern has no dip in between, the sources can not be distinguished. This start happening when
primary maxima of first source lying over the first minima of other source.
• The angle subtended by the source on the aperture of telescope in just distinguishable condition
is called resolving power.
• The resolving power depends on the wavelength of light source and width of the aperture.
Theoretically, the resolving power is given by,
α = λ/a (1)
where λ is the wavelength of the light source and a is the width of the aperture of telescope.
Experimentally, the angle α is calculated as:
α = d/D (2)
where d is the distance between two light source. In the experiment the two light sources are made
from one using two slits. Thus, d is the gap between the slits. The term D is the distance between slits
and aperture of the telescope.
1
Figure 1: When light source are far away (α is large) their principal maxima in diffraction patterns
are also far away, allowing us to distinguish two sources. When sources come closer (α decreases) their
primary maxima also come closer and make a single image. The critical value of α when two images are
distinguishable is called resolving power. This happens when primary maxima of first source lies over
the first minima of second source. Images are taken from website of Mahidol Wittayanusorn School.
5 Observations
The experiment includes measurement of d and D for determination of resolving power and measurement
of aperture, a, to verify the results with theoretical ones.
5.1 Measurment of d
Using microscope measure for values x1l , x1r , x2l , x2r where ‘l’ and ‘r’ in subscript are used to denote
left and right edge of a slit and numerals 1, 2 in subscript represents first and second slit respectively.
The center of both slits is given by x1 = (x1l + x1r )/2 and x2 = (x2l + x2r )/2. The distance d between
center of two slits is now given by
x1l + x1r x2l + x2r

d = |x1 − x2 | = −
2 2
Least count of microscope: . . .

First slit Second slit d
left edge (xl ) right edge (xr ) center (x) left edge (x0l ) right edge (x0r ) center (x0 )
... ... ... ... ... ... ...
5.2 Measurement of D
Set the slits more than 2 meter away from the telescope. Use meter tape to measure the distance.
Least count of meter tape: . . .
5.3 Experiment and measurement of a

Close the aperture of telescope and note the zero error in the measurement of a, if any.
Least count of micrometer:. . .
Zero error: . . .
Open the aperture completely and see the slits through telescope. Now, reduce the width of aperture
until two light sources cease to be resolved. Note down the value of aperture, a. Repeat the experiment
for several values of D.
2
Prepare the following table
S. Slit Critical width Corrected width of aper- Distance D/d a/λ Difference
No. width of aperture (a) ture, a, with zero error (D)
(d)
.. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
. . . . . . . .
6 Results
The theoretical and experimental resolving power for different values of aperture is tabulated below:
7 Source of error(s) and precautions

1. . . .
2. . . .
3. . . .
..
.
8 Comments on the result(s)

Mention your views about correctness of results, reliability of your results and experimental setup,
improving the setup etc.
3
Bibliography
[1] https://nptel.ac.in/courses/122103011/md06 physical optics/module12/lecture/topic4/slides/s4.htm
[2] A. Ghatak, Optics, Tata McGraw-Hill (2008).

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Resolving power of a telescope

2 Before you begin

x1l + x1r x2l + x2r

Least count of microscope: . . .

5.3 Experiment and measurement of a

7 Source of error(s) and precautions

8 Comments on the result(s)

[1] https://nptel.ac.in/courses/122103011/md06 physical optics/module12/lecture/topic4/slides/s4.htm

[2] A. Ghatak, Optics, Tata McGraw-Hill (2008).

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