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This is a list of large optical telescopes. For telescopes larger than 3 meters in aperture see List of largest optical reflecting telescopes . This list combines large or expensive reflecting telescopes from any era, as what constitutes famous reflector has changed over time.
People flock to the new David Dunlap Observatory in the 1930s, the second largest reflecting telescope in the world going by a mirror diameter of 74 inches (about 1.9 meters) at that time. Telescopes have grown in size since they first appeared around 1608. The following tables list the increase in size over the years.
Ultimately, a valid comparison between two telescopes must take into consideration more specifications, when a general measurement becomes obtuse. Aperture of the primary mirror alone can be poor measure of a reflective telescope's significance; for example, the Hubble Space Telescope has only a 2.4 metres (94 in) primary mirror. In addition ...
This list of the largest optical reflecting telescopes with objective diameters of 3.0 metres (120 in) or greater is sorted by aperture, which is a measure of the light-gathering power and resolution of a reflecting telescope. The mirrors themselves can be larger than the aperture, and some telescopes may use aperture synthesis through ...
Aperture First Light Nation Hale Telescope Palomar Obs. 200 inch 508 cm 1949 USA: Hooker Telescope Mount Wilson Obs. 100 inch 254 cm 1917 USA: McDonald Obs. 82 inch i.e. Otto Struve Telescope: 82 inch 208 cm 1939 USA: David Dunlap Observatory: 74 inch 188 cm 1935 Canada: Plaskett telescope Dominion Astrophysical Obs. 72 inch 182 cm 1918 Canada
Seeing is a major limitation to the angular resolution in astronomical observations with telescopes that would otherwise be limited through diffraction by the size of the telescope aperture. Today, many large scientific ground-based optical telescopes include adaptive optics to overcome seeing.
Comparison of nominal sizes of apertures of the Overwhelmingly Large Telescope and some notable optical telescopes. The Overwhelmingly Large Telescope (OWL) was a conceptual design by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) organization for an extremely large telescope, which was intended to have a single aperture of 100 meters in diameter.
The plate scale of a telescope connects the angular separation of an object with the linear separation of its image at the focal plane. If focal length is measured in mm, the plate scale in radians per mm is given by angular separation θ and the linear separation of the image at the focal plane s, or by simply the focal length f: