Phillip Franklin <pfranklin@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> thought of this phenomena before. I guess the mirror is
> only acting a bounce off plane so that the actual optical
> distance would be the twice the distance to the mirror (the
> true distance of the travel of light). I'm sure this goes
> by some fancy name. Am I explaining this correctly?
>
You've got it right. When you include a mirror in the
optical path in a lens system, objects in front of the
mirror behave optically as though they were behind it.
I don't know a fancy name for it, though it is similar
in principle to a "virtual image."
This is the principle used by a mirror telephoto lens
to reduce the physical length of the optical path -- the
mirrors fold the light path on itself and effectively
lengthen the lens.
joey
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