Evaluation of the image quality of telescopes using the star test

Sergio Vazquez y Monteil; Marcos A. Salazar Romero; David M. Gale

doi:10.1117/12.552351

28 September 2004 Evaluation of the image quality of telescopes using the star test

Sergio Vazquez y Monteil, Marcos A. Salazar Romero, David M. Gale

Proceedings Volume 5489, Ground-based Telescopes; (2004) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.552351
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2004, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Abstract

The Point Spread Function (PSF) or star test is one of the main criteria to be considered in the quality of the image formed by a telescope. In a real system the distribution of irradiance in the image of a point source is given by the PSF, a function which is highly sensitive to aberrations. The PSF of a telescope may be determined by measuring the intensity distribution in the image of a star. Alternatively, if we already know the aberrations present in the optical system, then we may use diffraction theory to calculate the function. In this paper we propose a method for determining the wavefront aberrations from the PSF, using Genetic Algorithms to perform an optimization process starting from the PSF instead of the more traditional method of adjusting an aberration polynomial. We show that this method of phase recuperation is immune to noise-induced errors arising during image aquisition and registration. Some practical results are shown.

Citation Download Citation

Sergio Vazquez y Monteil, Marcos A. Salazar Romero, and David M. Gale "Evaluation of the image quality of telescopes using the star test", Proc. SPIE 5489, Ground-based Telescopes, (28 September 2004); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.552351

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