astronomy chapter five

changing electric and magnetic fields that travel through space at the speed of light and transfer energy from one place to another

the distnace between successive peaks or throughs of a wave

a quantum of electonmagnetic energy; carries an amount of energy that depends inversely on its wavelenth

an array of electromagnetic radiation displayed in order of wavelenth

a unit of distance equaling one-billionth of a meter: commonly used to measure the wavelength of light

a unit of distance: commonly used to measure the wavelength of light

wavelength region in which our atmosphere is transparent- at visual, infared, and radio wavelengths

the distance from the lens to the point where it focuses parrallel rays (light coming from very great distances)

the largest lens or mirror in a telescope

a telescope that forms images by bending light with a lens

a telescope that uses a concave mirror to focus light into an image

a distrortion found in refracting telescopes because lenes focus different colours at slightly different distances. which means the miages are surrounded by colour fringes.

a telescope lens composed of two lenses ground from two different kinds of glass and designed to bring two selected colours to the same focus and correct for chromatic abberation

Blurred fringe surrounding any image, caused by the wave properties of light. Because of this, no image detial smaller than the fringe can be seen

a device that seperates light by wavelengths to produce a spectrum

a peice of material in which numerious microscopic parallel lins are scribed. light encountering a grafting is dispersed to form a spectrum

subatomic particles, such as electrons and protons, traveling at nearly the speed of light.