Fast folded wide angle large reflective unobscured system
AssigneeHughes Aircraft Company
InventorLacy G. Cook
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A wide angle large reflective unobscured system (10) has a primary (12), secondary (14), tertiary (18) and fold (16) mirror. The primary (12) and secondary (14) mirrors act as a non-reimaging afocal telescope of the Galilean type and relay a virtual entrance pupil to the fold mirror (16) which is positioned at the system aperture stop. The fold mirror (16) directs the energy to the tertiary mirror (18) which acts to direct and focus the energy at a viewing plane. The resulting telescope provides a wide two dimensional field of view which can exceed 20.degree..times.40.degree., and operates at optical speeds about F/1.0.
Claims19
A wide angle large reflective unobscured system comprising:
- a primary reflective element adapted to receive energy;
- a secondary reflective element for receiving energy reflected from said primary reflective element, said primary and secondary reflective elements cooperating to reimage a virtual entrance pupil to a real aperture stop;
- a tertiary reflective element;
- and
- reflective means for reflecting energy from said secondary reflective element to said tertiary element.
A wide angle large reflective unobscured system comprising:
- a primary mirror having a desired surface configuration, said primary mirror positioned to receive and reflect energy from a scene to be viewed;
- a secondary mirror having a desired surface configuration and positioned to receive energy from said primary mirror, said primary and secondary mirrors forming a real image of a virtual entrance pupil at an aperture stop;
- a tertiary mirror having a desired surface configuration and positioned to receive energy from said secondary mirror and reflecting and focusing energy to a viewing plane;
- and
- a fold mirror positioned at the aperture stop for reflecting energy to said tertiary mirror, said fold mirror having a desired surface configuration and said system providing a wide field of view of said viewed scene and very fast optical speed in the order of F/1.0.
A system comprising:
- a primary mirror;
- a secondary mirror in optical communication with said primary mirror;
- a fold mirror in optical communication with said secondary mirror;
- an aperture stop located at said fold mirror;
- and
- a tertiary mirror in optical communication with said fold mirror.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.