"Loopglass" space telescope

The "eyeglass" space telescope concept uses two cooperating
spacecraft.
One is a large fresnel or zone plate lens, and the other is an
"eyepiece"
sensor. Due to the geometry of the optics, tolerances are lax. The
fresnel
lens doesn't need to be perfectly rigid and maintain perfect formation
with
the sensor within 1/4 wavelength, as is required by a mirror
telescope.

http://www.llnl.gov/nif/psa/diffractive-optics/newtecheye.html

I've thought of an improvement on the concept. Instead of a full disc
lens,
I propose a "loopglass" that's only the outer edge of the fresnel
lens. For
a given amount of lens material, a "loopglass" can have a much larger
overall diameter for greater resolution. For example, instead of a
20m
diameter lens, you could have a 10cm wide loopglass which is 1km in
overall diameter. The result is the same light gathering area, but
with 50
times as much resolution!

Another advantage of the loopglass is that it's easy to fold and
deploy.
Instead of a complex 2d origami folding pattern, the glass is simply
divided
into slightly trapezoidal sectors. These sectors are simply folded
accordion
style.

With a 1km diameter telescope, it's possible to get a 150m pixel
resolution
at 2AU. At 30AU, the resolution is 2km pixels. Thus, this telescope
could
get extremely high quality images of all asteroids, planets, and moons
within the solar system. The resolution at 4.3ly away is 20,000km,
good
enough for a "pale blue dot" image of an Earth-sized planetary body,
or
a fuzzy image of a gas giant.

Scale up a loopglass telescope to a 100km diameter, and it's possible
to
get high quality images of large exoplanets.

Isaac Kuo

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Nikon and Megapixels
    ... If you take a photo with a 50 million pixel sensor using a milk bottle bottom for a lense you get a huge file of a crap low res image. ... In effect, what the formula says is that no matter how good the lens, ... But when the lens performance lags so far behind the sensor already as most zooms, all lenses at f16 etc do then theres not much if any actual image improvement by improving the sensor further! ... You CANNOT increase thew resolution from a lens by having a bigger pixel count. ...
    (alt.photography)
  • Re: 18-200 Lens
    ... Being shown an image with consistent 1-pixel resolution over the whole ... That's because there is no DSLR and its lens in the ... all at the 1 pixel level, and at the two pixel level what resolution it ... Not so in the lens and P&S camera that I used and use. ...
    (rec.photo.digital)
  • Re: Nikon and Megapixels
    ... showed to be sharper at higher f-numbers and the output resolution equation from Kodak) you can't put up, ... If you take a photo with a 50 million pixel sensor using a milk bottle bottom for a lense you get a huge file of a crap low res image. ... You CANNOT increase thew resolution from a lens by having a bigger pixel count. ... They show quite clearly that 24 million pixels is just a waste without better lenses if thats even possible. ...
    (alt.photography)
  • Re: Nikon and Megapixels
    ... If you take a photo with a 50 million pixel sensor using a milk bottle bottom for a lense you get a huge file of a crap low res image. ... In effect, what the formula says is that no matter how good the lens, ... You CANNOT increase thew resolution from a lens by having a bigger pixel count. ... As for lenses, 5 of my 7 are up to the sensor in the camera. ...
    (alt.photography)
  • Re: Nikon and Megapixels
    ... You are by definition limiting your potential definition lots just by using an aperture smaller than about 5.6. ... Go find some MTF graphs that show resolution for a lens v aperture throughout its aperture range. ... And it cant resolve 24 million pixel sensor even at the best settings... ...
    (alt.photography)