The Schmidt-Cassegrain configuration has advantages from the point of view of the packaging constraint but doesn't provide enough optical quality through the full field of view when a larger F-number (3.6) and a FOV of 1° are necessary to reach the minimum illumination threshold in the sensor. Moreover, to improve the global performance the telescope's window must be spherical instead of flat. All these factors produce a poor image optical quality that must be increased. We had overcome those problems introducing two changes in the traditional Schimdt-Cassegrain configuration. First, we had changed the spherical primary mirror to a Mangin mirror. This introduces a second surface and an extra thickness that can be used to optimize the system without adding new elements. Secondly, as the Mangin mirror is the entrance pupil of the system with a 200 mm diameter, the use of aspherical surfaces on it is too expensive. Instead we have aspherized the telescope's secondary mirror to obtain the required image quality. This aspheric coefficient of the secondary mirror, introduced in an element with a diameter not larger than 50 mm, replaces the third order coefficient of the second surface of the telescope window.

Date Published: 27 September 2008
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 7100, Optical Design and Engineering III, 71000M (27 September 2008); doi: 10.1117/12.797265

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7100:
Optical Design and Engineering III
Laurent Mazuray; Jean-Luc Tissot; Jeffrey M. Raynor; Rolf Wartmann; Andrew Wood, Editor(s)