1. The Keck telescope is based on Mauna Kea in Hawaii and has a mirror of diameter 10.0 m while the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has a mirror of diameter 2.40 m. When iris of a human eye is fully open, it has a diameter of about 7 × 10-3 m.
a) What is the light gathering power of the Keck telescope compared to the HST and compared to the human eye?
b) The Hubble Space Telescope has a resolving power of 0.1 arc seconds (that is, it can resolve details that are separated by 0.1 arc seconds, or more). What is the physical size of the smallest detail that Hubble can see (i) on our Moon, (ii) on Mars when it is closest to Earth? (iii) On Pluto? How does your answer compare to the diameter of Pluto?
c) What is usually the greatest limitation on ground-based telescopes? Briefly explain what adaptive optics.