Hubble.len - The Hubble space telescope

Hubble.len - The Hubble space telescope

The Hubble telescope has become famous for many reasons, not the least of which is the well-known fabrication error that has now been compensated. The version included here is the original Ritchey-Chrétien design including two hyperbolic mirrors. The design itself is ideal, but it was fabricated in a way that produced about 6 waves of spherical aberration due to an improper conic constant on the primary mirror. You may wish to experiment to find the deviation in the conic constant that would cause such aberration, as well as ways to compensate for it.

In setting up the system, a wavelength of 0.6328 was used, because that is the wavelength of the light used to test it. Note that surface 1 is needed to serve as a central obstruction.

*LENS DATA
Hubble space telescope
SRF      RADIUS      THICKNESS   APERTURE RADIUS       GLASS SPE   NOTE
  0        --        1.0000e+20    1.9199e+17             AIR

  1        --        4.9061e+03    1.2094e+03 SX          AIR   *

  2   -1.1040e+04   -4.9061e+03 P  1.2000e+03 AX   REFL_HATCH   *

  3   -1.3580e+03    6.4059e+03 S  150.000000      REFL_HATCH   *

  4        --            --        110.578590 S

*CONIC AND POLYNOMIAL ASPHERIC DATA
SRF        CC          AD          AE          AF          AG
  2      -1.002299      --          --          --          --
  3      -1.496000      --          --          --          --

Chapter Summary | Table of Contents