An Optical Corrector Design That Allows a Fixed Telescope to Access a Large Region of the Sky

TL;DR

This paper introduces a two-mirror optical corrector design that enables fixed telescopes to observe large sky regions with high image quality, potentially making them competitive with tiltable telescopes.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel two-mirror corrector design that significantly extends the accessible field of fixed telescopes, achieving high-quality imaging over large sky areas.

Findings

Corrector provides excellent images over fields larger than 45 degrees.

Fixed telescopes can access large sky regions with performance comparable to tiltable telescopes.

Design is applicable to liquid mirror telescopes and similar fixed systems.

Abstract

We discuss a family of two-mirror correctors that can greatly extend the field accessible to a fixed telescope such as a liquid mirror telescope. The performance of the corrector is remarkable since it gives excellent images in patches contained within a field greater than 45 degrees. We argue that this performance makes fixed telescopes competitive with tiltable ones.