What are the good and bad things about a Reflecting Telescope.?

Answer 1

The best thing about reflecting telescopes is that they are relatively simple and inexpensive to construct, and completely free of chromatic aberration (colour error). They also tend to be more compact and lighter in weight than a refracting telescope. The down side is that they are a little bit finicky to maintain, requiring fairly frequent collimation (alignment of the mirrors), specially if they are transported a lot. But it is much easier and less expensive to build a large reflector than a large refractor, and the size of a telescope's aperture is its most important feature, since that's what gathers the light.

Answer 2

Good things:
1. The largest aperatures (mirror or lens diameters) are only possible with mirrors. Lenses in refracting 'scopes have physical limitations starting around 12", while mirrors have been made up to several *meters* in diameter.
2. In a Newtonian reflecting 'scope it is possible to put a camera right at the focal point, so that only 1 optical surface (the mirror itself) affects the light, whereas in a refracting 'scope, a minimum of 2 optical surfaces (both sides of the objective lens) plus the eyepiece lenses affect the light. The fewer optical surfaces affecting the light, the better.

Bad things:
1. For simple Newtonian 'scopes there is a distortion called coma distortion that is always present (it can be minimized, but it is always there to some extent).
2. (as mentioned above) they need frequent collimation (but I don't consider that a big deal, now that I have learned how to do it on my own 'scope, quite well).

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Answer 3

A reflecting telescope is better then a refracting telescope the only bad thing is the larger the mirror the mor you can see. So in order to get a good glimps of galaxies you need a pretty damn big mirror. Other then that a reflecting telescope is great to see the other planets.

Answer 4

Just one more thing which no one has mentioned yet.
Due to the fact that a Reflector has a secondary mirror obstructing a part of the light path, the image suffers some degradation in contrast and sharpness.
That is why a Refractor, size for size, has a better quality image when compared to a Reflector.

Adolph