A purely reflective large wide-field telescope

Аннотация

Two versions of a fast, purely reflective Paul-Baker type telescope are discussed, each with an 8.4-m aperture, 3° diameter flat field and f/1.25 focal ratio.

The first version is based on a common, even asphere type of surface with zero conic constant. The primary and tertiary mirrors are 6th order aspheres, while the secondary mirror is an 8th order asphere (referred to here for brevity, as the 6/8/6 configuration). The D₈₀ diameter of a star image varies from 0′′.18 on the optical axis up to 0′′ .27 at the edge of the field (9.3 – 13.5μm).

The second version of the telescope is based on a polysag surface type which uses a polynomial expansion in the sag z,

r² = 2R₀z – (1 + b)z² + a₃z³ + a₄z⁴ + … + a_Nz^N,

instead of the common form of an aspheric surface. This approach results in somewhat better images, with D₈₀ ranging from 0′′.16 to 0′′.23, using a lower-order 3/4/3 combination of powers for the mirror surfaces.

An additional example with 3.5-m aperture, 3^∘.5 diameter flat field, and f/1.25 focal ratio featuring near-diffraction-limited image quality is also presented.