Dialyte-refractor design for self-correcting

lateral color

Rick Blakley Abstract. Unlike traditional refracting telescopes, dialyte and

405 North Granada Avenue, No. 7 Schupmann-medial refractors manage the correction of chromatic aber-
Tucson, Arizona 85701 ration through the use of correcting elements well spaced from their
E-mail: [email protected] companion, single-element objectives. Dialyte designs leave a large con-
tribution to lateral color, and Schupmann-medial types require the tilting
of the mangin corrector to make the focus available, which restricts the
field unless at least one toroidal curvature is included. A new dialyte
design that combines attributes of both systems results in an all-
refractive telescope that offers correction for lateral color and an acces-
sible field unrestricted by tilt-induced astigmatism. The design can also
be adapted to correct the secondary spectrum of a traditional achromat.
© 2003 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. [DOI: 10.1117/1.1533039]

Subject terms: dialyte; refractor; telescope; Schupmann corrector; lateral color;

chromatic aberration.
Paper 020199 received May 17, 2002; revised manuscript received Jul. 25, 2002;
accepted for publication Aug. 15, 2002.

1 Introduction that depends on the difference of the focal length, ⌬ f ⬘

Correcting the longitudinal chromatic aberration of the ob- ⫽ f ⬘ F ⫺ f ⬘ C of the lens in question between the two wave-
jective in a refractive-telescope system with unequally dis- lengths 共subscripts F and C兲 chosen for correction. Its
persing glasses is a basic duty that is well understood. To formulation6 is
do this while shrinking the secondary spectrum is more
problematic, especially if the objective is to have signifi- CDM⫽⌬ f ⬘ / f ⬘ ,
cant aperture. The unusual dispersion glasses that are gen-
erally required either are very expensive or can not be pro-
duced in large diameters to the homogeneity required for where CDM⫽(lateral color)/(image height) and is called
the design. In the nineteenth century when molding ordi- the chromatic difference of magnification and f ⬘ is the sys-
nary glasses of significant diameters was also problematic, tem focal length in the design wavelength. Since ⌬ f ⬘ will
theorists conceived of designs that utilized subaperture cor- differ in the two or more glasses used in any achromatic
rectors placed well behind their companion objectives to doublet, a finite CDM will register at the system focus. The
manage aberration.1 While longitudinal chromatic aberra- image of a white point out in the field will show as a sag-
tion could be corrected using these techniques, lateral color ittal, lateral streak of the spectral wavelengths that the de-
remained uncorrected until Schupmann proposed his me- tector registers. The swollen spots generated by the out-of-
dial scheme.2 Today, Schupmann telescopes of apertures focus extremes manifested in the secondary spectrum
under 1 m have been built or are in construction.3 Christen4 swamp the lateral streaks so that they’re not usually seen. If
resurrected the old dialyte scheme with the intention of the secondary spectrum is reduced substantially however,
using its geometry for correcting the secondary spectrum of the lateral streaks appear diminishing the resolution in the
refractors that were too large for the practical use of field.
unusual-dispersion glasses in their objectives. He named Figure 1 displays the spots at the paraxial focus of a
the design tri-space because three significant airspaces were 203.2-mm, F/12.7 achromatic doublet of ordinary glasses
traversed before the final focus was reached. He went so far obtained from a ZEMAX® plot 共all such plots in this paper
as to propose designing and combining a dialyte-style cor- were made with this software兲. The diameter of the Airy
rector with the 40⬙ Yerkes refractor. While refractor and disk is shown plotted near the spot centers, sized for the
Schupmann designs tend to be long, interest remains for mercury e-line wavelength 共546.1 nm兲. The angular, half-
using such designs for use in solar astronomy. Periscope field is listed above each plot. The swollen spots, eight
designers may also find the designs useful. times the diameter of the Airy disk, are for the C and F line
wavelengths 共656.3 and 486.1 nm, respectively兲 and are out
of focus at this location because of the secondary spectrum
2 Dialyte Problem the design possesses.
Kingslake5 showed that the dialyte scheme will correct lon- Figure 2 presents the same doublet with an added, afo-
gitudinal chromatic aberration with proper design. While cal, dialyte-style corrector located about halfway along the
some part of the lateral color depends on the magnitude of doublet’s back focus for the purpose of substantially reduc-
the longitudinal chromatic aberration, a component remains ing the system’s secondary spectrum. The plotted spots

400 Opt. Eng. 42(2) 400–404 (February 2003) 0091-3286/2003/$15.00 © 2003 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers
 Blakley: Dialyte-refractor design . . .

Fig. 1 Spots at the paraxial focus.

plainly show the lateral streaks crossing the Airy disks that to reimage the wavelengths’ off-axis, divergent cones onto
indicate the presence of lateral color in the plots for 0.15 the mangin corrector. Thus, the correction of lateral color is
and 0.25 deg off axis. The wavelengths chosen for the plots achieved, but the corrector and objective must be tilted
are the b, C, e, F, and g * lines 共the b and g * lines wave- slightly with compensation so that a reasonably well cor-
lengths are 706.5 and 435.8 nm, respectively兲. The spots rected central field is accessible beside the objective’s focal
for the various wavelengths line up totem-pole style, with plane. The outer field tends to be limited by astigmatism.
the green, e line spot occurring at the top, and the deep red 共The optics may contain toroidal curves to avoid the com-
b line, and the violet g * line occurring at the bottom. pensation tilting of the objective.9兲
Clearly, the correction of lateral color for such a system is However, the Schupmann field lens can be used to re-
desirable. image the wavelengths’ off-axis, divergent cones on a re-
imaging, all-refractive corrector located after the objec-
3 Managing Lateral Color tive’s focus in a similar way. The resulting system is long,
Table 1 reveals the design from which the plots in Fig. 2 but the correction is of a very high quality.
were produced 共all surfaces are spherical兲. Note the dis- Figure 3 presents diagrams of the systems discussed thus
tance from the last surface of the objective to the first sur- far as well as two, new systems that use all-refractive cor-
face of the corrector. Cones of off-axis rays of differing rectors located after their objectives’ foci. All of the designs
wavelengths proceed from the objective to the corrector on presented are for objective apertures of 203.2 mm. Each
their way to the system focus. They leave the objective design diagram provides a scale drawing of the system on
with a small amount of angular divergence with respect to its optical axis with the optical elements shown adjacent to
each other so that by the time the cones enter the corrector, provide the reader with an idea of curvatures and thick-
significant separations occur among them. This process is nesses. Approximate length dimensions are also given.
the genesis of lateral color. The corrector adjusts the posi- Each of the new designs is termed ‘‘achromalat,’’ a contrac-
tions of the various cones longitudinally, essentially cor- tion of ‘‘achromat’’ and ‘‘latus’’ indicating roughly,
recting the secondary spectrum, but the angular separation ‘‘without-color laterally.’’ This name distinguishes them
between the cones of differing wavelengths has become so from the tri-space and other dialyte-like systems. The ‘‘ach-
large by the time the corrector is reached that the lateral romat achromalat’’ marks a system utilizing an achromatic
color is unmanageable. Either the corrector must be moved doublet as the objective, and ‘‘dialyte achromalat’’ indicates
so that it is very near to the rear face of the objective where a system with the traditional singlet objective found in clas-
the separation is small or a method of refocusing these sic dialytes. Each achromalat design utilizes the field lens
various cones onto the corrector must be achieved. The and after-objective-focus corrector, but relay lenses are also
latter method is chosen since the desire is to make use of shown. These are used to provide a distribution of power
subaperture correctors of lower cost and practicality of among the lenses after the objective’s focus so that the
manufacture. actual corrector group does not require high power and so
The Schupmann medial,7 in its simplest form, makes use the chromatic aberration or the secondary spectrum the ob-
of a singlet, mangin corrector located after the objective’s jective generates is not worsened before the corrector is
focus that is responsible for correcting longitudinal chro- brought into play. Some experimentation has shown that
matic aberration. The system would have a huge lateral the number of lenses required in the relay-corrector pack-
color contribution 共as does Schupmann’s brachyt design, age may be reduced from six to five with some moderate
essentially the old Hamilton8 design of 1819兲 except that a degradation of correction. However, the numbers of ele-
field lens or mirror is positioned near the objective’s focus ments used in the present designs also allow for good cor-

Fig. 2 Same doublet as Fig. 1 with added corrector.

Optical Engineering, Vol. 42 No. 2, February 2003 401

 Blakley: Dialyte-refractor design . . .

Table 1 Tri-space (dimensions in millimeters; typical of all tables).

Surface 1/2 Aperture Radius Thickness Glass

1 101.6 1498.600 22.504 BK7

2 101.6 ⫺910.590 8.585
3 101.6 ⫺910.590 9.728 F4
4 101.6 ⫺4140.200 1230.000
5 57.4 ⫺975.539 11.430 SF14
6 57.4 ⫺315.582 5.075
7 57.4 ⫺280.042 6.350 KzFSN4
8 57.4 358.771 0.138
9 57.4 310.248 13.970 FPL52
10 57.4 ⫺598.548 1320.225

Fig. 3 System diagrams.

402 Optical Engineering, Vol. 42 No. 2, February 2003

 Blakley: Dialyte-refractor design . . .

Table 2 Achromalat specifications.

Achromat Achromalat Dialyte Achromalat

Surface 1/2 Aperture Radius Thickness Glass Surface 1/2 Aperture Radius Thickness Glass

1 101.6 1498.600 22.504 BK7 1 101.6 2607.015 22.352 BK7

2 101.6 ⫺910.590 8.585 2 101.6 ⫺5214.029 3344.015
3 101.6 ⫺910.590 9.728 F4 3 22.5 625.533 7.451 BK7
4 101.6 ⫺4140.200 2540.000 4 22.5 Infinity 1862.667
5 16.0 590.000 5.080 BK7 5 57.3 209.387 18.333 SF57
6 16.0 Infinity 1270.000 6 57.3 206.974 44.430
7 57.1 541.515 7.620 KzFSN2 7 56.8 556.929 19.800 FK54
8 57.1 194.539 6.316 8 56.8 ⫺267.023 9.313 KzFS1
9 57.1 199.102 18.134 FPL51 9 56.8 ⫺1256.000 606.203
10 57.1 ⫺37798.125 444.199 10 57.3 1507.488 9.313 KzFS1
11 53.5 584.640 12.700 BAK4 11 57.3 219.847 19.800 FK54
12 53.5 ⫺1632.167 60.020 12 57.3 ⫺1064.145 446.313
13 50.0 ⫺278.075 11.430 SF14 13 60.1 ⫺361.678 18.333 SF6
14 50.0 ⫺156.058 1.465 14 60.1 ⫺307.552 1529.167
15 50.0 ⫺151.948 6.350 KzFSN4
16 50.0 212.255 5.451
17 51.6 211.923 22.225 FPL52
18 51.6 ⫺235.048 1279.390

rection of astigmatism so that a serious attempt at number rations other than field curvature is easily achieved while
reduction has not been pursued. Thus, the minimum num- ignoring the field lens. The radii of the lens 共a planoconvex
bers required for excellent correction for a given F-number singlet works well if the speed of the system is slow兲 is
is not yet known. Surprisingly, the dialyte achromalat con- altered after initial design to provide the correction of lat-
figuration was more easily designed than was the achromat eral color. The effect that this strategy has on field curva-
achromalat! ture is small, and a rough estimation of the power of the
Table 2 provides design specifications for the achroma- field lens required can be derived with the standard, conju-
lats. All surfaces are spherical, but some applications of the gates equation10
dialyte achromalat may require the singlet objective to
carry an asphere on one surface if the objective’s focus has
␾ ⫽1/p ⬘ ⫺1/p,
independent utility. To simplify matters, the field lens is
located at the design’s objective focus but may be shifted
off without great effect. The correction of all desired aber- where p is the distance from the field lens to the back of the

Fig. 4 Spots generated by (a) achromat achromalat and (b) dialyte achromalat.

Optical Engineering, Vol. 42 No. 2, February 2003 403

 Blakley: Dialyte-refractor design . . .

objective 共and is negative兲, and p ⬘ is the distance from the References

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positive兲. Telesc. Soc. 6共summer兲, 9 共1994兲.
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chosen for the achromat achromalat plots and best focus 378 共Oct. 1985兲.
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romalat plots. Notice that there is no detectable lateral color 6. R. Kingslake, ‘‘Lateral color,’’ in Lens Design Fundamentals, p. 201,
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Advanced Telescope Making Techniques, A. Makintosh, Ed., Vol. 1,
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longer than the apochromats they are intended to replace at 9. J. Daley, ‘‘The field element,’’ in Amateur Construction of Schupmann
Medial Telescopes, p. 21, J. Daley, 共1984兲.
their given aperture ratios. However, they require signifi- 10. R. Kingslake, ‘‘Conjugate distance relationships,’’ in Lens Design
cantly smaller elements of the unusual dispersion glasses Fundamentals, p. 53, Academic Press, 共1978兲.
than the comparison, traditional apochromats would re- 11. M. Herzberger, ‘‘Dispersion,’’ in Modern Geometrical Optics, p. 118,
R. E. Krieger Publishing, 共1980兲.
quire. Their lengths are much shorter than would be re- 12. R. Kingslake, ‘‘Predesign of a thin three-lens apochromat,’’ in Lens
quired in the equivalent achromats to provide the same per- Design Fundamentals, pp. 86 – 87, Academic Press, 共1978兲.
formance, and no tilted components are necessary to gain
access to their foci. Folding may be appropriate for these Rick Blakley is an amateur optical theorist and fabricator. He has
designs, and efforts to shorten them and reduce the number invested nearly 40 years of personal study in geometrical and wave
of elements would increase their appeal. In any case, the optics, and is published in various amateur publications and profes-
sional journals. He is an optomechanical engineer and holds a
potential for achieving high-quality performance has been patent in the field. He holds a degree in mathematics (summa cum
demonstrated with both apochromatic11 and super laud) from Winston-Salem State University of the University of North
achromatic12 results achieved in designs of these types. Carolina.

404 Optical Engineering, Vol. 42 No. 2, February 2003