Sandia Corporation

United States of America As Represented by the Secretary of the Air Force

The University of New Mexico

Celestron Acquisition, LLC

Mark Ackermann

Jean-Claude M Diels

Peter C Zimmer

John T McGraw

David A Rowe

Corey Lee

Eric J Kopit

A telescope system may facilitate the capture of images of light, and may have a housing, a primary mirror, a Schmidt corrector plate, and a lens group. The housing may have a mirror end and an aperture end with an entrance aperture that receives the light. The primary mirror may be positioned proximate the mirror end, and may have a spherical shape. The Schmidt corrector plate may be positioned proximate the entrance aperture to direct the light toward the primary mirror in a manner that substantially compensates for the spherical shape. The lens group may include multiple lenses, one or more of which may be positioned within the housing proximate the aperture end such that the light is directed through the lens group by the primary mirror. The lens group may focus the light at a focal location further than the Schmidt corrector plate from the primary mirror.

Schmidt telescope with external image capture

Methods and apparatus for a structure function monitor provide for generation of parameters characterizing a refractive medium. In an embodiment, a structure function monitor acquires images of a pupil plane and an image plane and, from these images, retrieves the phase over an aperture, unwraps the retrieved phase, and analyzes the unwrapped retrieved phase. In an embodiment, analysis yields atmospheric parameters measured at spatial scales from zero to the diameter of a telescope used to collect light from a source.

Structure function monitor

An optical system resembling a modified Gregorian astronomical telescope is disclosed in the specification and drawings. Lenses are used in the inter-focal region to modify the optical characteristics of the system. The use of such inter-focal lenses, can, for example, flatten the image plane of the field thereby increasing the field of view of the telescope.

Modified gregorian astronomical telescope

A wide field of view telescope having two concave and two convex reflective surfaces, each with an aspheric surface contour, has a flat focal plane array. Each of the primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary reflective surfaces are rotationally symmetric about the optical axis. The combination of the reflective surfaces results in a wide field of view in the range of approximately 3.8&#xb0; to approximately 6.5&#xb0;. The length of the telescope along the optical axis is approximately equal to or less than the diameter of the largest of the reflective surfaces.

Wide field of view telescope

An optical system comprising a concave primary mirror reflects light through an intermediate focus to a secondary mirror. The secondary mirror re-focuses the image to a final image plane. Optical limiter material is placed near the intermediate focus to optically limit the intensity of light so that downstream components of the optical system are protected from intense optical transients. Additional lenses before and/or after the intermediate focus correct optical aberrations.

Gregorian optical system with non-linear optical technology for protection against intense optical transients

A scatterometer utilizes the dead zone resulting from lockup caused by scatter from a sample located in the optical path of a ring laser at a location where counter-rotating pulses cross. The frequency of one pulse relative to the other is varied across the lockup dead zone.

Growing community of inventors

Albuquerque, NM, United States of America

Mark Ackermann