Clavius: an operational concept in relay telescopes

摘要

A new interactive approach in the field of optical calculations has now resulted in a new fast telescope design using exclusively spherical surfaces, and which offers small central obstruction and wide diffraction-limited field. It is a new concept of relay telescope, based on a new relay lens design that allows sequential optimisation of the essential requirement, i.e. image quality. It is possible to ajust successively the monochromatic axial spot, the monochromatic off-axis spot, the polychromatic axial spot and the polychromatic off-axis spot. Each ajustment is obtained interactively by ray-trace software, each being almost completely independent, except for the last one which requires repeated resetting of the previous adjustements. We will explain the main principles of operation and present the results obtained for a 500mm diameter telescope and comparative performance with well-known Newton and Richey-Chretien equivalent designs.