Instruments

Newtonian reflector

A big concave mirror and a small flat at 45° — Newton’s reflector with an eyepiece off to the side.
Author
Isaac Newton
Date
1668 — shown to the Royal Society

A refracting spyglass of the 1660s threw coloured fringes — the same colour problem as the prism demo. Newton ground a metal mirror instead, put a small flat at 45° to send the focus out the side, and avoided glass dispersion altogether. The tube he showed in 1668 was a few inches long.

Speculum metal tarnished; later mirrors were silvered glass. The layout stayed. This bench is the classic: concave primary, diagonal, eyepiece, white sky in.

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Newtonian reflector | Loomrume