Design of a hybrid refractive-diffractive telescope for observations in UV

Abstract

Telescopes are one of the common types of satellite payloads. They are used both for Earth and astronomical observations. By using space telescopes it is possible to eliminate the negative effect of the atmosphere on image quality. Additionally, observations in some spectral ranges can be performed only from space due to absorption of certain wavelengths in the atmosphere. One such range is UV below 300 nm, which is of particular interest when it comes to the investigation of hot objects. Reflective telescopes are commonly used in this spectral range, although many classical designs are limited in their useful field of view to values below 1°. In this paper a hybrid refractive-diffractive telescope design working in a 200 nm – 300 nm spectral range with a field of view 10°×10° is proposed. Its performance is compared to purely refractive and reflective systems and significant improvement in the imaging quality of the system and decrease of its size is shown. The choice of the diffractive element type is explained. Parameters of the systems are based on the requirements for a proposed Polish mission UVSat which aims to enable long-term observations of a large number of stars exhibiting UV variance.