Reflecting telescope calculation

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SUMMARY

The calculation for the placement of photographic film in a reflecting telescope involves determining the focal lengths of the objective and eyepiece mirrors. The objective mirror has a radius of curvature of 3.0m, resulting in a focal length of 1.5m, while the eyepiece mirror, with a radius of curvature of -1.50m, has a focal length of -0.75m. The distance between the mirrors is 0.90m, leading to an object distance of -0.6m for the eyepiece. The final image distance calculated is 3m, which is the correct placement for the photographic film to record the image of a star.

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Homework Statement



A reflecting telescope has a radius of curvature of 3.0m for its objective mirror and a radius of curvature of -1.50m for its eyepiece mirror. If the distance between the two mirrors is 0.90m, how far in front of the eyepiece should you place the photographic film to record the image of a star?

Homework Equations


I could only find out the focal length of both objective mirror and eyepiece mirror.

f=radius of curvature / 2 ...(1)
1/f = 1/di + 1/do ...(2)

The Attempt at a Solution



For now, I got fo=1.5 and fe=-0.75
as the object are from infinity , by using equation 2, di=fo=1.5
Since the distance between the two mirrors is 0.90m , and 1.5-0.9=0.6
0.6 is the object distance of the eyepiece.

1/-0.75 = 1/di + 1/0.6
di is -0.3333
I haven't taught reflecting telescope in my class. I just find a similar solution in yahoo answer.
But I feel the ans is totally wrong. Can anyone help me?
 
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You can always "unfold" a system with mirrors, replacing the mirror with a lens of equal focal length (at least for the purposes of geometric optics). So your approach is basically correct, and I agree that the image distance for the first mirror is 1.5m. But the distance to the second mirror is only 0.9m - so the image (the object for the second mirror) is beyond it. So in the second calculation ##d_o=-0.6##m. Then$$\begin {eqnarray*}\frac 1 {d_i}&=&\frac 1 {0.6}-\frac 1 {0.75}\\
&=&\frac 13\end {eqnarray*} $$and the answer you are looking for is 3m.
 

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