The Astronomy Center has provided educational resources to introductory astronomy educators since 2003. Over the past 20 years, the rapid pace of discovery has rendered some of our linked resources obsolete. Thus, the Astronomy Center will be decommissioned on March 1, 2022. Our highest quality resources will be retained on ComPADRE.org.
This website allows teachers to discover the technology behind the Hobby-Eberly telescope in this series of simple activities. The activities include determining a cost-effective configuration for a primary mirror, determining the arrangement of mirror segments, aligning mirror segments so that they work together as a single large mirror and discovering why a tracker is needed to follow a star across the sky. This is part of a larger collection from McDonald Observatory.
McDonald Observatory. (2008, April 22). McDonald Observatory: Telescope Technology for Teachers. Retrieved June 22, 2025, from https://mcdonaldobservatory.org/teachers/classroom/ttt/TelescopeTechnology.html
%0 Electronic Source %A McDonald Observatory, %D April 22, 2008 %T McDonald Observatory: Telescope Technology for Teachers %V 2025 %N 22 June 2025 %8 April 22, 2008 %9 application/pdf %U https://mcdonaldobservatory.org/teachers/classroom/ttt/TelescopeTechnology.html
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