Re: [ATM] Re: RC with multiple primaries

[Dominic-Luc Webb <dlwebb@canit.se>]

Now maybe my two cents worth.... I have been anticipating a multiple
mirror design. I recognize that collimation is a major limitation to
success. As many of you know, the lensless Schmidt is the design I
have been experimenting with the most recently. This design is by
and far the simplest of all designs, having only a single spherical
optical surface (the mirror). Collimation is a relatively brainless
exercise. I would think there are a few ways to put a couple of similarly
speced spherical mirrors together. For faint objects, I suppose if one
has a couple of separate detectors, it would be possible to run
correllative statistical comparisons of incoming signals to identify
signals from noise. Alternatively different filter sets might be used.

Putting the two beams together in this design seems more straightforward.
I have considered the possibility of using mirrors mounted on speaker
attenuator coils to converge the beams and this would get feedback from
a CCD or PMT based imager. In this case, one mirror is generally fixed
and the other gets feedback such that divergence from the first mirror
is immediately compensated. I think this is not different from protocols
used for CCD guidance/tracking, which is now commonplace.

To be honest, I have not yet found a serious application for this. I only
see it as an amusement to occupy my time indoors now that Winter is
hitting us up here in Sweden. If any of you experts in here want to
tear this idea apart or offer recommendations, now is a great time. The
case subject mirrors are  300 mm F/3.

Dominic-Luc Webb



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