| See under telescope (def. 1). |
[tel-uh-skohp] 
noun, adjective, verb, -scoped, -scop⋅ing.| 1. | an optical instrument for making distant objects appear larger and therefore nearer. One of the two principal forms (refracting telescope) consists essentially of an objective lens set into one end of a tube and an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses set into the other end of a tube that slides into the first and through which the enlarged object is viewed directly; the other form (reflecting telescope) has a concave mirror that gathers light from the object and focuses it into an adjustable eyepiece or combination of lenses through which the reflection of the object is enlarged and viewed. Compare radio telescope. |
| 2. | (initial capital letter ) Astronomy. the constellation Telescopium. |
| 3. | consisting of parts that fit and slide one within another. |
| 4. | to force together, one into another, or force into something else, in the manner of the sliding tubes of a jointed telescope. |
| 5. | to shorten or condense; compress: to telescope the events of five hundred years into one history lecture. |
| 6. | to slide together, or into something else, in the manner of the tubes of a jointed telescope. |
| 7. | to be driven one into another, as railroad cars in a collision. |
| 8. | to be or become shortened or condensed. |
re·flect·ing telescope (rĭ-flěk'tĭng)  (click for larger image in new window) n. A telescope in which light from the object is gathered and focused by a concave mirror, with the resulting image magnified by the eyepiece. |
A device used by astronomers to magnify images or collect more light from distant objects by gathering and concentrating radiation. The most familiar kind of telescope is the optical telescope, which collects radiation in the form of visible light. It may work by reflection, with a bowl-shaped mirror at its base, or by refraction, with a system of lenses. Other kinds of telescopes collect other kinds of radiation; there are radio telescopes (which collect radio waves), x-ray telescopes, and infrared telescopes. Radio and optical telescopes may be situated on the Earth, since the Earth's atmosphere allows light and radio waves through but absorbs radiation from several other regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. X-ray telescopes are placed in space.