Research On Optical System Of The Lunar-based Optical Telescope (LOT)

There are many advantages on the lunar surface such as lack of atmosphere, lackof magnetic field, long rotation cycle, so that it is thought as the best site forastronomical observation by many scientists. Placing an optical telescope on the lunarsurface can offer the potential for solving lots of outstanding problems in astrophysics,from asteroseismological research and extrasolar planet detections to high precisionobservation of light variability of planet and fast optical certification of gamma-raybusters, etc. Following with the "lunar exploration upsurge" appeared in many countiesin recent few years, it is an inevitable trend to land on the Moon and to utilize itsresources, however building lunar-based astronomical observatory is an important wayto use the lunar resources.Research on optical system design and stray light analysis of the Lunar-basedOptical Telescope (LOT) are presented in this thesis. Firstly, R-C reflecting system isselected as the structure form for the LOT according to its optical characteristics, suchas long focal length, large aperture and small field of view, and then the optical systemof the LOT is designed in terms of optical specifications. One of flaws of R-C systemis that out-of-field stray light may straight arrive at the detector without any scattering,so as to damage the image quality. Therefore it should make specified stray lightanalysis for the optical system. The detailed stray light analysis of the LOT isdescribed in the second part of the article, firstly the primary conical baffle, secondarybaffle and outer baffle are designed, and the solid model of the LOT system is made inTracepro software, then important scattering paths are analyzed. The analysis resultcan't satisfy the requirement because of existing two important stray light paths.Secondly proposals for modifying primary and secondary baffles are separatelybrought forward according to the important stray light paths, and the stray lightanalysis of the revised system is done. The analysis result shows that the modificationsare efficient and stray light can satisfy the requirement.