Coma Aberration in the Newtonian Telescopes
By Santiago Roland - Los Molinos Observatory IAU CODE 844 (OALM)
- Amateur Astronomers Association (AAA)
Montevideo - Uruguay
10 Jan, 2006.
Introduction - The coma aberration of
a newtonian telescope is inevitable. But it can be reduced by increasing the
f/number of the telescope. The coma elongates stars at the edge of the field and
this elongation is bigger when the telescope is faster. This means, small focal
ratios.
I decided to study the behavior of coma and
I did it mathematically. The way of approaching this problem is let some rays
coming from a star, go to the main mirror and reflected to the focal plane. I
studied the reflection of this rays and the image formed in the focal plane.
Later with this tool, I made diagram spots that shows how coma is formed and
how big it is.
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