English

Transformable Reflective Telescope for optical testing and education

Physics Education 2020-07-28 v1 Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Abstract

We propose and experimentally demonstrate the Transformable Reflective Telescope (TRT) Kit for educational purposes and for performing various optical tests with a single kit. The TRT Kit is a portable optical bench setup suitable for interferometry, spectroscopy, measuring stray light, and developing adaptive optics, among other uses. Supplementary modules may be integrated easily thanks to the modular design of the TRT Kit. The Kit consists of five units; a primary mirror module, a secondary mirror module, a mounting base module, a baffle module, and an alignment module. Precise alignment and focusing are achieved using a precision optical rail on the alignment module. The TRT Kit transforms into three telescope configurations: Newtonian, Cassegrain, and Gregorian. Students change telescope configurations by exchanging the secondary mirror. The portable design and the aluminum primary mirror of the TRT Kit enable students to perform experiments in various environments. The minimized baffle design utilizes commercial telescope tubes, allowing users to look directly into the optical system while suppressing stray light down to \sim108^{-8} point source transmittance (PST). The TRT Kit was tested using a point source and field images. Point source measurement of the Newtonian telescope configuration resulted in an 80\% encircled energy diameter (EED) of 23.8 μ\mum.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2007.12771,
  title  = {Transformable Reflective Telescope for optical testing and education},
  author = {Woojin Park and Soojong Pak and Geon Hee Kim and Sunwoo Lee and Seunghyuk Chang and Sanghyuk Kim and Byeongjoon Jeong and Trenton James Brendel and Dae Wook Kim},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.12771},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

23 pages, 16 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-23T17:23:32.167Z