Telescopes, Resolution and Angular Size

A key aspect of telescopes is their angular resolution. Here we discuss what makes up the concept of angular resolution and seeing. This is part of my intro Astronomy class taught at Willam Paterson University and CUNY Hunter.

0:00 Introduction
2:21 The Tangent of an angle
5:16 The Definition of the Radian
6:59 Angular Size and Resolving power
9:20 Telescope Size: Resolving power
10:50 Ten Areminute Resolution
11:33 Five Arcsecond Resolution
11:53 One Aresecond Resolution
12:36 Diffraction of Light Waves
13:22 Telescope Diffraction limit: the Rayleigh Criterion
14:44 Telescope Size: the Diffraction Limit.
18:36 Ground-based Telescopes are limited by "Seeing."