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arXiv · 1711.03916

Non-axisymmetric aberration patterns from wide-field telescopes using spin-weighted Zernike Polynomials

Stephen M. Kent
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Abstract

If the optical system of a telescope is perturbed from rotational symmetry, the Zernike wavefront aberration coefficients describing that system can be expressed as a function of position in the focal plane using spin-weighted Zernike polynomials. Methodologies are presented to derive these polynomials to arbitrary order. This methodology is applied to aberration patterns produced by a misaligned Ritchey Chretian telescope and to distortion patterns at the focal plane of the DESI optical corrector, where it is shown to provide a more efficient description of distortion than conventional expansions.

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Stephen M. Kent. 2017-11-10. Non-axisymmetric aberration patterns from wide-field telescopes using spin-weighted Zernike Polynomials. https://doi.org/10.1088/1538-3873%2Faaa6b8

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