for similar reasons cracked camera lenses take perfectly normal pictures
definitely a bit counter intuitive at first
Comment on xkcd #3182: Telescope Types
bort@sopuli.xyz 1 day agoThe wire will cause the entire image to become a little bit darker.
in a telescope light travels in many paths from start to finish. so a single wire will have a very soft shadow, which stretches over the entire image. This works because the wire is well within the focal length. If the wire was exactly at the focal length, it’s shadow would be sharp, but the farther away it is from the focal length, the softer the shadow will become
for similar reasons cracked camera lenses take perfectly normal pictures
definitely a bit counter intuitive at first
Successful_Try543@feddit.org 1 day ago
The wires also bend the light which makes the stars not look like points but gives them prongs.