Abstract

A segmented or diluted aperture optical system will undergo phase errors as a result of errors in the positioning of the segments. The errors associated with a segmented primary mirror limit the image quality obtainable with synthetic aperture telescopes. Here we study the effects of segmentation errors on image quality, considering both the phase angle and the amplitude of the optical transfer function (OTF). We show that, in these kinds of telescope, phasing and alignment errors among segments reduce the amplitude and distort the phase angle of the OTF.

© 2004 Optical Society of America

Strehl ratio and modulation transfer function for segmented mirror telescopes as functions of segment phase error

Gary Chanan and Mitchell Troy
Appl. Opt. 38(31) 6642-6647 (1999)

Fabrication and alignment issues for segmented mirror telescopes

Feenix Y. Pan, James H. Burge, Rene Zehnder, and Yanqui Wang
Appl. Opt. 43(13) 2632-2642 (2004)

Field-of-view limitations of phased telescope arrays

James E. Harvey and Christ Ftaclas
Appl. Opt. 34(25) 5787-5798 (1995)

Control and alignment of segmented-mirror telescopes: matrices, modes, and error propagation

Gary Chanan, Douglas G. MacMartin, Jerry Nelson, and Terry Mast
Appl. Opt. 43(6) 1223-1232 (2004)

Applications of the phase transfer function of digital incoherent imaging systems

Vikrant R. Bhakta, Manjunath Somayaji, and Marc P. Christensen
Appl. Opt. 51(4) A17-A26 (2012)