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by lostlogin 3215 days ago
According to the thread above, the telescopic lens is safer to use than a shorter one. Only here would someone give a mathematical proof!
1 comments

No, a slower lens (higher f-number, or, actually, T-number) is safer than a faster lens. It's only a practical accident that a long "telephoto" lens is usually significantly slower than a lens closer to normal for the format (and that the long end of a consumer zoom is usually slower than the wide end). A 600mm f/4 lens is an eye-wateringly expensive hulking monster; a 50mm f/1.8 lens is the proverbial cheap-as-chips (with some exceptions), but will let about 5-6 times the amount of light through to be imaged on the sensor - it'll burn a smaller hole, but do it much more quickly. Should you be able too find a 600mm lens with the same T-number (similar to the f-number, but taking transmissivity losses into account), it'll do the job just as quickly, but much more thoroughly.
Actually, this was a self-built telescope. It was a 3.5" apochromatic 900mm focal length lens adapted to a T-mount.

If you remove the camera, and point the scope at the sun, there's a good sensor-sized beam of intense sunlight at focus.