Abstract

There is a great demand for new telescopes that use larger primary mirrors to collect more light. Because of the difficulty in the fabrication of mirrors larger than 8 m as a single piece, they must be made with numerous smaller segments. The segments must fit together to create the effect of a single mirror, which presents unique challenges for fabrication and testing that are absent for monolithic optics. This is especially true for the case of a highly aspheric mirror required to make a short two-mirror telescope. We develop the relationship between optical performance of the telescope and errors in the manufacture and operation of the individual segments.

© 2004 Optical Society of America

Efficient testing of segmented aspherical mirrors by use of reference plate and computer-generated holograms. I. Theory and system optimization

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Figure control for a fully segmented telescope mirror

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