The aspheric reflecting surface types studied by L. Mertz for correcting certain aberrations of a spherical primary telescope mirror are examined and some properties of these surfaces are presented. For the one-surface aspheric that corrects spherical aberration of all orders, a 6th order equation for the surface shape is derived. For the set of two aspheric surfaces correcting spherical aberration and coma of all orders, a set of differential equations have been developed to describe the surface shapes. The off-axis imaging performance is derived from the on-axis imaging properties and compared with ray trace results.

Date Published: 18 September 2007
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 6667, Current Developments in Lens Design and Optical Engineering VIII, 66670A (18 September 2007); doi: 10.1117/12.734457

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6667:
Current Developments in Lens Design and Optical Engineering VIII
Pantazis Z. Mouroulis; Warren J. Smith; R. Barry Johnson, Editor(s)