Refractor Telescopes – Refracting Telescopes
Refractor telescopes are the ‘traditional’ telescopes you might think of when you think of Galileo making history. They have a lens at the front of the tube which is shaped to bring light to a focus point where it can be picked up by the eyepiece at the other end of the tube. The closed tubes make them virtually maintenance free and they are good for land viewing as well as astronomy.
Good refractors, (notice I said good) produce very clear sharp images and pound for pound a refractor will tend to outperform a reflector of similar size and manufacturing quality as no light is lost by mirror surfaces. Their construction makes them more expensive than reflectors and at large apertures refractors become unwieldy as well as prohibitively expensive.
Small refractors are excellent for suburban viewing of the moon and planets. They cope well with light pollution as the small aperture captures less of it. Remember that large aperture is not required for lunar and planetary observation as those subjects are well lit by the sun.