KEYWORDS: Telescopes, Monochromatic aberrations, Optical alignment, Optical design, Ray tracing, Monte Carlo methods, Mirrors, Device simulation, Space telescopes, Aberration theory
Off-axis three-mirror anastigmatic (TMA) telescopes with designed decenters and tilts, have many misalignment degrees of freedom and strong coupling between each misalignment degree of freedom. Therefore, it is difficult to establish misalignment equations only using A222 and A131 in nodal aberration theory (NAT). In addition, for off-axis TMA optical systems with designed decenters and tilts, the robustness of the existing fifth-order NAT misalignment calculation algorithm based on high-order Zernike coefficients and boresight errors decreases, so it is difficult to realize its engineering application. To solve the issue of insufficient practicality of the existing misalignment algorithm based on fifth-order NAT, a third-order NAT calculation algorithm based on quadratic aberration field decenter vectors is derived and established. Two concepts of inherent aberration field decenter vector and misalignment aberration field decenter vector are proposed. Taking an off-axis TMA optical system with 6-m focal length as the research object, simulations, and alignment verification experiments were carried out. Compared with the existing fifth-order NAT misalignment algorithm, the results show that when measurement noise is not considered, the two methods can both obtain convergent calculation results, and the average RMS wavefront errors (WFE) of the optical system are both corrected to be below 0.0574 waves. When different levels of measurement noise are introduced, the robustness of the fifth-order NAT misalignment algorithm decreases, and there are even cases where the optical system completely fails to be corrected. However, the algorithm based on quadratic aberration field decenter vectors shows better robustness. Under different levels of measurement noise, this algorithm could correct the average RMS WFE of the optical system to around 0.0574 waves.
Due to the continuously increasing detection ability in astronomy, polarization aberrations are playing more and more important roles in the performances of astronomical telescopes. In this paper, polarization aberrations of an unobscured off-axis astronomical telescope, which is designed to detect weak gravitational lensing signal, are analyzed via polarization ray trace. The diattenuation map and retardance map of each mirror of the telescope are obtained, and both its Jones pupil and amplitude response matrix are shown. Because of polarization aberrations, the imaging contrast of the telescope is limited to be at a level of 1e-5, and the PSF spatial distribution of the telescope varies, too. Optics ellipticity of the telescope is analyzed. The variations of optics ellipticity, which are dependent of field of view (FOV), are induced by polarization aberrations. The maximum and mean variations of the optics ellipticity in all FOVs are 7.5e-3 and 2.7e-3, respectively. At the FOV [-0.0487°, 0.155°], the maximum ellipticity interpolation error increases from 1.2e-4 to 1.1e-3. According to the analyses shown in this paper, we can see that polarization aberrations in the telescopes which aim to detect weak gravitational lensing signal and demand ultrahigh imaging performance are not negligible. Hence, polarization aberrations should be involved to optimize these telescopes.
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