A6525 - Lec.

03

Stops, Pupils, Field Optics

and Cameras

Astronomy 6525

Lecture 03

Outline
 Stops
 Étendue
 Pupils and Windows
 Vignetting
 The periscope, and field lenses
 A simple camera

 Supplemental Material
 Stops and aberrations: Examples

 Field lenses and the PMT

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Stops
A stop is something in the optical system that limits the
diameter of the beam of light. Aperture
 Aperture Stop: Like an iris in a camera or your Stop
eye. Limits the size of the primary optic.

 Field Stop: Limits the size of the field of view –

the amount of “sky” that reaches the detector,
as in the photomultiplier tube below, or for
CCD arrays, it is the physical size of a pixel or
of the array in the focal plane.
Field Stop
PMT

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Etendue: Stops & Throughput

 The étendue, or area – solid angle product, AΩ, (also
called the throughput) of an optical system is
determined by the combination of the aperture and
field stops.
 A is limited by the aperture stop
 Ω is limited by the field stop
 Pupils
 The entrance pupil is the image of the aperture stop through
the optical system from the front
 The exit pupil is the image of the aperture stop from the back
 Aberrations
 The position of stops can affect system aberrations.

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Stop at mirror – causes aberations

 Consider a spherical mirror with an aperture stop at mirror

 There is now an axis defined by the line from the center of the
stop (center of the mirror) to the center of curvature.
 Off-axis  coma
 The location of the aperture stop controls aberrations.
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Stop at center of curvature: control aberrations

 Consider a spherical mirror with an aperture stop at the center of
curvature

 The “on-axis” and “off-axis” beams pass around the center of

curvature and hit the mirror. There is no “optical axis” for a
sphere so there are no “off-axis” rays.
 No off-axis aberrations -- just spherical aberration!

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Pupils and Windows in Optical Systems: I

2f 2f 2f 2f

f f Exit pupil

Chief Rays
Entrance pupil Boyd, page 73
and aperture stop
 Entrance pupil – the image of the aperture stop in object space
 Exit pupil – the image of the aperture stop in image space
All the light transmitted by the optical system must pass through the
entrance and exit pupils
 Chief Ray – any ray that passes through the center of the aperture
stop. It will also pass through the center of the entrance and exit
pupils. Different chief rays will correspond to different object and image
points
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Pupils and Windows in Optical Systems: 2

2f 2f 2f 2f
Entrance f f Exit pupil
window

Chief
Rays

Entrance pupil Field stop and Boyd, page 73

and aperture stop exit window

 The maximum cone of light defined by the chief rays

corresponding to different object and image points defines the
field stop
 Entrance window – the image of the field stop in object
space
 Exit window – the image of the field stop in image space

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Vignetting
Aperture image in
object space A

object image
plane plane
exit
st
entrance 1 optical Last optical pupil Exit
pupil surface surface pupil
 As we move off-axis, all the rays from a point
in the object plane may not make it through
the optical system.
 For example, due to an undersized mirror,
represented by “A”, not all the rays from
point P make it through the entrance pupil. Bundle of rays
 This phenomena is called vignetting. that are passed
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A Simple Periscope
2f 2f 2f 2f
object lens 1 lens 2 image 2

C
A B
E
D
entrance window (image image 1
of lens 2 by lens 1)
 The optical system above transfers an upright, one-to-one image
 Either lens 1, or lens 2 may be thought of as the aperture stop, since both
define the same cone as seen from the image point A
 Lens 2 defines the field stop

 One can show that the diameter of the entrance window is 1/3 the
diameter of each lens, d, therefore, AE/AD =(d/6)/CD, so that the field of
view (FOV) of the object is given by:
2AE =AD/CD⋅(d/3) = d/2, since CD =4/3 ⋅f, and AD = 2f.
The maximum image size is ½ the size of the lens that is used!
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Field Lenses
object lens 1 lens 3 lens 2 image 2

aperture 3' apertures

image 1
1' & 2'
 Inserting lens 3 (which has the same focal length and aperture
of lenses 1 and 2) into the system doubles the field of view
 The entrance pupils are all the same size (imaged to locations
1', 2', and 3' above).
 The entrance window is now the image of lens 3 (aperture 3')
which has the same diameter as the image.
 Lens 3 is called a field lens. When the entrance window
coincides with the object, there is no vignetting, and the
illumination over the whole field of view is uniform
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A Simple Camera: 1
primary
lens or Lyot
mirror stop (at detector
pupil) image
telescope
image plane plane
filter

relay lens or
mirror

 Simple optical/infrared imaging systems will contain four major

elements:
1. Relay lens
2. Lyot stop
3. Filters
4. Detector
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primary
A Simple Camera: 2
lens or Lyot
mirror stop (at detector
pupil) image
telescope
image plane plane
filter

relay lens or
mirror

 Relay lens – reimages telescope focal plane onto the

detector focal plane. Reimaging f/# chosen to match
physical size of the pixels
 Lyot stop – a stop (baffle) on which the secondary (or
primary for a refractor) is imaged by the relay lens. For
thermal IR systems, this stop is a cold baffle that prevents
unwanted thermal radiation (such as from the ground) from
reaching the detector.
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primary
lens or
A Simple Camera: 3 Lyot
mirror stop (at detector
pupil) image
telescope
image plane plane
filter

relay lens or
mirror

 Filters limit the range of wavelengths that can reach the detector
so as to obtain the best sensitivity, and photometry or
spectroscopy. Filters are often put at the Lyot stop for a variety of
reasons, including
 Small imperfections in the filter will have a small effect on all pixels – if
in the image plane, get spots in the image!
 Resonant filters (e.g. Fabry-Perot etalons) may require near normal
incidence to function properly
 Pupils often have the smallest requirements for filter size – especially
good for wide field cameras
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primary
Matching to the Focal Plane
lens or relay lens or Lyot
mirror mirror stop (at detector
telescope pupil) image
image plane Dc plane
Dp filter

i
o
Dc = diameter of relay (camera)
Dp = diameter of primary
 Matching to the focal plane
 Suppose the focal plane has 18 micron pixels (xp) and we wish map these to
0.5′′ (θs) on the sky which covers a distance (xt) in the telescope focal plane.

# #
= but = = & =

#
= #
 # or =
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The Power of Étendue conservation

 Looking at our last equation, we have
#
= # or =

 Squaring both sides of the second equation shows that the

étendue of the system is conserved
 Except for certain circumstances (such as broadening of the
beam in optical fibers) étendue conservation defines the
properties of the beam at any element in the optical system
(in terms of AΩ).
 Ω = AΩ irrespective of any intervening optical
elements!
 To match detector to sky you only need to look at the (final)
camera f-number.
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primary
Collimating the Beam
lens or Lyot
mirror stop (at detector
pupil) image
telescope
image plane plane
filter

collimator camera

 Typically one wants a collimated beam to fall upon the filter or

dispersive element
 Otherwise there can be aberrations and/or degradation of
spectral resolution
 Since étendue is conserved, an angle, , on the sky
corresponds to an angle = / at the filter.
# # #
 We have as before the camera is set by = /
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Diffraction Limited Observations

 Starting with the equation that defines the focal plane camera f-
number
#
=

 Under diffraction limited observations: = /

 Let assume we want 2 pixels across the diffraction disk, then the
f-number of the camera is given by

#
2
=

 And hence, the size of the telescope does not matter

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Example: FORCAST
 Faint Object Infrared Camera for the Sofia Telescope
 5 to 38 μm 2 color facility camera that employs 256 × 256 pixel
Si:As, and Si:Sb BIB arrays
 Pixel size: 50 µm, wish to fully sample at shortest diffraction
limited wavelength of 2.5 m SOFIA telescope: 15 µm
 For full sampling, we have f#⋅λ/2 = 50 μm

 f# = 2⋅50/15 = 6.7 at the focal plane

 For a 2.5 m telescope, θdiffraction ~ λ/D = λ/10, so at 15 μm,
θdiffraction = 1.5”
 pixel size on sky is 1.5”/2 = 0.75”
 Heavily over sampled at the longest wavelengths:
 5 pixels per beam at 38 µm For more info see: "First Science
 Field of view: 3.2’ × 3.2’ Observations with SOFIA/FORCAST:
The FORCAST Mid-infrared Camera,"
Herter et al. 2012, ApJ, 749, L18
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Supplemental Material
 References
 Stop and aberration examples
 Field lens example: Photomultiplier tubes (PMT)

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Some References
 Telescope Optics: Evaluation and Design
 Harrie Rutten and Martin van Venrooij
 Astronomical Optics
 Daniel Schroeder
 Reflecting Telescope Optics
 R. N. Wilson
 Optics
 Hecht and Zajac
 Principles of Optics
 Born and Wolf

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Stops and
Distortion

The position of
a stop can
affect distortion.

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Stops and
Distortion
(cont’d)

Placing the stop

symmetrically
eliminates distortion
(and coma).

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Stops and Vignetting

 If your eye is placed next to the eyepiece (E0), you don’t see the
whole field. This FOV is vignetted.
 Put your eye at E (the exit pupil) to see the whole field.
 But eyepiece must be large!

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Stop and Field Lens

exit pupil

 Field lens
 Place a lens at L3 (common focus) which reimages L1 onto L2.
 The field lens does not change the intermediate image
 In practice, don’t put exactly at focus (dust, etc.)
 Now your eye can be next to the eyepiece.

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Field Optics and the PMT: 1

 Consider a device such as the photomultiplier tube drawn below, that is
designed to accurately measure the flux from faint stars
 The star is imaged directly onto the face of the PMT, which at first
glance appears OK. However, due to atmospheric seeing, the star’s
image will wander about on the surface of the PMT
 Since the sensitivity of the PMT is not strictly uniform, the output signal
varies:
Field Stop
PMT

Hot spot
 This is not Signal
photon noise! Dead spot

Time
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Field Lenses and the PMT: 2

 To mitigate this problem, one can use a field lens, that makes an
image of the objective, matched in size to fill the aperture stop.

field lens aperture stop

PMT

field stop
objective lens
 Any light that leaves the objective and hits the field lens will go
through the aperture stop. The PMT does not have an image of
the star, but rather an image of the objective.
 So, if the star wanders around in the field stop, the PMT will
remain uniformly illuminated (but from different angles).

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Field Lenses and the PMT: 3

 For example:
star in center

PMT

star at the edge

PMT

 Note: It is best not to place the field lens exactly in the

focus of the primary, because small imperfections (e.g.
dust, finger prints, scratches, etc…) can scatter a
significant amount of light.
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