A refracting telescope (refractor) is a telescope which uses lenses to refract light. This refraction causes parallel light rays to converge at a focal point; while those which were not parallel converge upon a focal plane . This can enable a user to view a distant object as if it were brighter, clearer, and/or larger. These are similar to microscopes. The monocular is a type of refractor. A typical refractor has two lenses, an objective lens and an eyepiece lens . The objective lens has two pieces of glass (with different densities), "crown" and "flint glass". Each side of each piece is ground and polished, and then the two pieces are glued together. The curvatures are designed to cancel chromatic and spherical aberration.

Notable Refracting Telescopes

• Yerkes Observatory (102cm)
• Lick Observatory (91cm)
• Paris Observatory (83cm + 62cm)
• Nice Observatory (76cm)