Reflecting Telescope Optics I: Basic Design Theory and its Historical Development / Edition 2

by Raymond N. Wilson

Overview

A corrected reprint of the first edition appeared in 2000. It was a requirement that the pagination remain unaltered, but nevertheless, apart from minor and format corrections on 17 pages, a number of corrections or additions of substance could be incorporated. These included minor corrections to Figs. 1. 3 b) and 2. 8 and to the text of Fig. 5. 18. The most important change of all was probably the complete revision of the historical treatment of Cassegrain in the Portrait Gallery, due to the superb research of Baranne and Launay on his identity, published in 1997. Additions of substance were text on pages 21, 323 and 487 (Portrait Gallery – Mersenne) and corrections on pages 117 2 4 (y to y ), 174 (concerning the scale of Fig. 3. 37), 263 (Fig. 3. 96 instead of 3. 97 in the text), 341 (sign in the text equation below Eq. (4. 36)), Table 5. 2 (concerning UKIRT), Table A. 15 (first symbol), pages 505 (Ref. 3. 71) and 531 (Brown and Cassegrain). Several of these errors were pointed out by readers, to whom I express my gratitude. The present 2nd edition contains all the material of the first edition, - changed apart from some further corrections, but with 25 pages more of - ditional explanations or new material, including 5 new—gures (2 in Chap. 4, 2 in Chap. 5 and 1 following the Portrait Gallery).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783540401063
Publisher:	Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Publication date:	06/24/2004
Series:	Astronomy and Astrophysics Library
Edition description:	2nd ed. 2004
Pages:	570
Sales rank:	690,335
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.04(d)

Table of Contents

Historical introduction.- Basic (Gaussian) optical theory of telescopes.- Aberration theory of telescopes.- Field correctors and focal reducers or extenders.- Major telescopes from Lord Rosse to about 1980.

Editorial Reviews

From the reviews of the second edition:

"Through its wealth of detail and mathematical rigour, this book can be seen as a modern classic … ." (Roderick Willstrop, The Observatory, Vol. 125 (1184), 2005)

"This is a ‘serious’ book on reflecting telescope optics … . It is aimed at serious optical engineers who wish to design telescope optical systems from first principles and gain an understanding of the mathematical theory which applies. … There is an historical overview, followed by chapters on basic gaussian optical theory of telescopes, aberration theory of telescopes … . These are followed by a comprehensive set of references, list of figures, list of tables, name index and subject index." (Roger Feasey, Journal of the Auckland Astronomical Society AAS, February, 2005)

From the Publisher