A new way to control light. Traditionally, optics relied on bulky lenses to bend light. Whether in a smartphone or a telescope, thick glass has long been essential for creating sharp images. But ...

An innovative telescope design has proven successful for daytime skywatching, opening new doors for uninterrupted observation of the cosmos.

The powerful James Webb Space Telescope's inaugural batch of images has opened a new chapter of cosmic exploration, but astronomers say the observatory's most consequential discoveries may well be ...

The study, “Color astrophotography with a 100 mm-diameter f/2 polymer flat lens,” appeared on Feb. 3 in Applied Physics Letters.This research was supported by the Defense Advanced Research ...

Get ready for a new Roman Empire: A NASA space telescope will detect a staggering wealth of intricate gravitational lenses that could help unlock the mysteries of dark matter.

But when telescopes must focus light from galaxies millions of light-years away, the bulk of their lenses become impractical. That's why observatory and space-based telescopes rely on massive ...

For the first time, a flat telescope lens has been produced that represents colors accurately, offering a way to make less bulky lenses that could be sent into space cheaply. The first telescopes ...

Traditional lenses, made of glass or plastic, are particularly prone to this issue. Curved mirrors, used in telescopes, are less affected but introduce other distortions. The new flat lens minimizes ...

Most of these “GoTo” telescopes have many thousands of objects stored. With such a telescope, all you need to do is set it up, let it get its bearings from a bright star and then give it a target.

The powerful James Webb Space Telescope's inaugural batch of images has opened a new chapter of cosmic exploration, but astronomers say the observatory's most consequential discoveries may well be ...