Mirror telescope or refracting telescope? Schmidt-Cassegrain or Maksutov? Anyone faced with these agonizing questions before buying a telescope needs to find out about the advantages and disadvantages of the different construction types.

Refracting telescope:

• Fraunhofer Achromat: classic principle of a refractor, but with chromatic aberration.
• ED Apochromatic: two- or three lens refractor with an ED lens that reduces the most chromatic aberration and ensures maximum contrast. Among these refractors there are also some very well-corrected three lens optics that correct chromatic aberration and field curvature and so are very good for astrophotography.

Reflector mirror telescope

• Newtonian Reflector: classic telescope named after Isaac Newton with a main mirror and a secondary mirror. Simple and proven system.
• Maksutov Cassegrain: system consists of a main mirror and a secondary mirror, and a meniscus correction lens.
• Schmidt-Cassegrain: similar to the Maksutov, but instead of the correction lens a Schmidt plate sits in front of the optics in order to correct chromatic aberration.