Getting My Head Round Newt Physics

[TopHouse]

I want to understand how my 200P works, have I got all this right?

The tube gathers light, that light is then reflected & focussed due to it being parbolic by the primary, onto the secondary.

The secondary because it's tilted, deflects that up the focus tube.

So, is the distance from primary to secondary only relative to the size of the primary, ie it has to be far enough away to fit it's large image onto the smaller surface of the secondary?

If so, is it better for the distance to be too long than too short?

if it's too short, does this mean the full image from the primary doesn't 'fit' onto the smaller secondary so some field of view is lost?

If it's too long, does this mean that all the image fits onto the secondary but in effect it's 'smaller' thus giving less detail?

Does the eyepiece/focus assembly then only focus on the image in the secondary, meaning that the distance between primary and secondary has no effect on focus?

Was that all a bit 'heavy'? lol

[Space Bat]

Take a look at this - it will help explain.

Howstuffworks "How Telescopes Work"

Chris