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Old 07-02-2013, 09:16 PM
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pmrid (Peter)
Ageing badly.

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Join Date: May 2008
Location: Cloudy, light-polluted Bribie Is.
Posts: 3,760
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wavytone View Post
Yup... probably the optics for a thermal-imaging camera.

It's a two mirror schiefspiegler, essentially one side of a larger cassegrain cut in half. Anton Kutter came up with a design for tilted two-mirror scopes based on this which minimises the aberrations across the field of view.

This one clearly isn't to Kutters design, which suggestions the aberrations are well outside diffraction limited. It may well get away with that in the infra-red (longer wavelength) and perhaps the intended application didn't demand perfect imaging - the shape of that aperture will have some ugly diffraction spikes !

So visually don't expect much.

Both mirrors will be figured strongly off-axis so not really re-useable unless you're prepared to regrind and polish...

An interesting doorstop, though.
Ahhh. There speaks the sobering voice of the realist.

P
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