Techniques in X-ray astronomy1. Imaging Telescopes

X-ray astronomy has benefited enormously with the deployment of imaging X-ray telescopes in space, leading to a veritable revolution. Such telescopes require distortion free focusing of X-rays and the use of position sensitive X-ray detectors. In this article I shall describe the importance of X-ray imaging, the optical principles behind the creation of images and the instruments based on these principles. The various techniques used to fabricate such X-ray telescopes are described briefly. The many types of detectors used in X-ray astronomy will be described in the second part of this article in a subsequent issue ofResonance.