Question #4453c

Light travels in a straight line, so a mirror will reflect light back in a straight line, and the angle of the reflection will depend on the angle of the mirror to the original light ray.

Fun-house mirrors are another matter - they distort the reflection because the mirrors themselves are bent. I'm not a physicist, so I can't give you details on that.

I'm told that light will sometimes act like a ray, and other times act like particles - or packets. Again, not a physicist.

Light on the Earth's horizon - setting sun, e.g. - can create interesting effects with clouds or mist.

Light traveling through space can be captured by either refracting or reflecting telescopes. The reflecting telescopes are the largest - Palomar has a 200-inch mirror.

Reflecting telescopes have a mirror at the back of the tube that catches the light and reflects it to an eyepiece, while refracting telescopes have a lens at the front that catches the light.

A large mirror will have less distortion than a lens will. The largest telescopes are reflectors.

"Reflector telescopes do not suffer from chromatic aberration because all wavelengths will reflect off the mirror in the same way." (www.astronomynotes.com/telescop/s3.htm)

And " Reflector telescopes are cheaper to make than refractors of the same size." (www.astronomynotes.com/telescop/s3.htm)