A
curved mirror is a
mirror with a curved reflecting surface. The surface may be either
convex (bulging outward) or
concave (bulging inward). Most curved mirrors have surfaces that are shaped like part of a
sphere, but other shapes are sometimes used in optical devices. The most common non-spherical type are
parabolic reflectors, found in optical devices such as
reflecting telescopes that need to image distant objects, since spherical mirror systems, like spherical lenses, suffer from
spherical aberration. One advantage that mirror optics have over lens optics is that mirrors do not introduce
chromatic aberration.