List of telescope parts and construction
Introduction
Hardware ===Accessories===*Finderscope*Iron sight*Reflector (reflex) sight*Cheshire collimator: A simple tool to collimate a telescope===Control===*Clock drive*GoTo===Mechanical construction===*Mirror support cell*Serrurier truss*Silvering===Mounts===*Telescope mount - Types include:** Altazimuth mount** Equatorial mount*** Equatorial platform **** Poncet Platform*** Fork mount*** German equatorial mount*** Springfield mount===Optics===Mirrors and lenses are the critical light-bending components of a telescope. *Objective: The first lens or curved mirror that collects and focuses the incoming light. **Primary lens: The objective of a refracting telescope. **Primary mirror: The objective of a reflecting telescope. *Corrector plate: A full aperture negative lens placed before a primary mirror designed to correct the optical aberrations of the mirror. **Schmidt corrector plate: An aspheric-shaped corrector plate used in the Schmidt telescope. **Meniscus corrector: A meniscus-shaped corrector plate usually used in the Maksutov telescope. *Focusing mask: A full aperture mask temporarily placed before the primary mirror to aid in focusing the telescope. **Bahtinov mask**Carey mask**Hartmann mask*Sub-aperture corrector: One or a series of corrective lens (sometimes combined with a corrective curved mirror) placed after (near the focus) a primary mirror designed to correct the optical aberrations of the mirror. These can be just a small version of the corrector plate, but since they are usually used in a Cassegrain configuration in front of the secondary mirror they require additional modification since the light passes through them twice. *Secondary mirror**Curved mirror*Honeycomb mirror*Liquid mirror*Parabolic reflectorSubsequent (sometimes optional) components realign, segment, or in some way modify the light of an incoming image:*Field lens: A correcting lens placed just before the image plane of a telescope. *Telecompressor or focal reducer: Optical element to decrease the telescope's focal length and magnification (usually by a fixed percentage) and widen the field of view, providing opposite effects of a Barlow lens. *Star Diagonal: Used to change the angle of the light coming out of a telescope, for easier viewing. *Herschel Wedge: Similar to a star diagonal with a wedge-shaped unsilvered prism reflector that reduces incoming light by up to 95% for solar viewing. *Coma corrector a correcting lens used to reduce coma distortion in fast reflecting telescopes. *Field flattener a correcting lens used to reduce field curvature in refracting telescopes for astrophotography. *Barlow lens: Optical element to increase the telescope's focal length and magnification, narrow the field of view and reduce coma distortion, providing opposite effects of a telecompressor. *Astronomical filter: Used to select specific colors (or light frequencies) for astrophotography. *Filter wheel: One manner to easily insert filters into the optical train. Mostly used for photography. *Focuser: Allows the user to adjust the focus by moving the eyepiece along the optical axis. *Eyepiece: Performs the final focus correction before the light reaches the eye. *Charge-coupled device (CCD): A light-sensitive integrated circuit digital sensor (commonly used in digital cameras) that turns light into an electrical charge used to collection image data.Generally applicable to all items:*Metallizing: A way of coating mirrors for high-efficiency light reflection. *Optical coating: Thin layers applied to mirrors, filters, and lenses to avoid reflections, as well as absorb certain colors.
Software and control interfaces *Active optics*Adaptive optics*ASCOM*EQMod*INDI*PLate OPtimizer*Versatile Real-Time Executive
Support equipment and buildings *Observatory:*Equatorial room
See also *List of telescope types*Lists of telescopes