DEVICE FOR ALIGNING A TWO-MIRROR CENTERED OPTICAL SYSTEM

摘要

A device may be used for aligning two-mirror telescopes in process of their assembly and operation at observatories, including spacebased observatories. The device contains a monochromatic light source, a collimator and a beamsplitter to form a reference branch and a working one. The working branch includes a focusing objective, two on-axis reflective adjusting computer-generated holograms, fabricated on the reflecting surface of a secondary mirror, mostly in its edge zone, arranged in alignment with its optical axis. Holograms apertures may be made either as circular rings or as couples of diametrically opposite portions of respective circular rings, which are slewed around each other at a definite angle. The central hole of the primary mirror contains a holed stop, whose centre is arranged in alignment with the reflecting surface vertex of said mirror and the focus of the focusing objective. The reference branch contains a flat reference mirror mounted perpendicular to light beams radiating from the beamsplitter, which may be made as a prism-cube, whose edge surface, containing a reflective coating on the reference branch side, is a flat reference mirror. A registering unit contains a second focusing objective, a position photodetector connected to a data imaging and processing unit. The technical result is a highly reliable and efficient alignment of two-mirror centered optical systems due to a high-precision unified optical element which is time invariant. Such being the case, it provides a de crease in the number of elements and a reduction in the number of segments, being under control, to a single one.