Authors

T. Schmid; J. P. Rolland; A. Rakich;K. P. Thompson

Comments

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Abbreviated Journal Title

Opt. Express

Keywords

OPTICAL-SYSTEMS; TELESCOPES; SYMMETRY; FIELDS; Optics

Abstract

We present the nodal aberration field response of Ritchey-Chretien telescopes to a combination of optical component misalignments and astigmatic figure error on the primary mirror. It is shown that both astigmatic figure error and secondary mirror misalignments lead to binodal astigmatism, but that each type has unique, characteristic locations for the astigmatic nodes. Specifically, the characteristic node locations in the presence of astigmatic figure error (at the pupil) in an otherwise aligned telescope exhibit symmetry with respect to the field center, i.e. the midpoint between the astigmatic nodes remains at the field center. For the case of secondary mirror misalignments, one of the astigmatic nodes remains nearly at the field center (in a coma compensated state) as presented in Optics Express 18, 5282-5288 (2010), while the second astigmatic node moves away from the field center. This distinction leads directly to alignment methods that preserve the dynamic range of the active wavefront compensation component.

Journal Title

Optics Express

Volume

18

Issue/Number

16

Publication Date

1-1-2010

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

17433

Last Page

17447

WOS Identifier

WOS:000281042400115

ISSN

1094-4087

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