Question

a) The Mount Palomar telescope has an objective mirror with a 508 cm diameter. Determine its angular limit of resolution at a wavelength of 550 nm (in radiants and degrees). (Recall that you can resolve two objects only if the maxima of their images are separated by at least the radius of the first dark fringe of each image’s Airy disk).

b) How far apart must two objects be on the surface of the Moon if they are to be resolvable by the Palomar telescope? The Earth-Moon distance DEM is 3.844·108m. How far apart must two objects be on the Moon if they are to be distinguishable by the eye? Assume a pupil diameter of 4.00 mm.

Answer 1

a) the angular limit of resolution is

= wavelength=550nm=550*10^-9m

D= diameter=508cm=5.08m

in three significant figure

in three significant figure

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b)

x=3.844*10⁸m

D=4.00mm=0.0004m