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In optics, spherical aberration (SA) is a type of aberration found in optical systems that have elements with spherical surfaces.This phenomenon commonly affects lenses and curved mirrors, as these components are often shaped in a spherical manner for ease of manufacturing.
The Houghton telescope or Lurie–Houghton telescope is a design that uses a wide compound positive-negative lens over the entire front aperture to correct spherical aberration of the main mirror. If desired, the two corrector elements can be made with the same type of glass, since the Houghton corrector's chromatic aberration is minimal.
The most common non-spherical type are parabolic reflectors, found in optical devices such as reflecting telescopes that need to image distant objects, since spherical mirror systems, like spherical lenses, suffer from spherical aberration. Distorting mirrors are used for entertainment. They have convex and concave regions that produce ...
In these devices lenses are sometimes paired up with curved mirrors to make a catadioptric system where the lens's spherical aberration corrects the opposite aberration in the mirror (such as Schmidt and meniscus correctors).
If there is refraction at a collective spherical surface, or through a thin positive lens, O'2 will lie in front of O'1 so long as the angle u2 is greater than u1 (under correction); and conversely with a dispersive surface or lenses (over correction). The caustic, in the first case, resembles the sign > (greater than); in the second < (less than).
The needed amount of toroidal shape can be transferred entirely or partially to the primary mirror. In large focal ratios optical assemblies, both primary and secondary mirror can be left spherical and a spectacle correcting lens is added between the secondary mirror and the focal plane (catadioptric Yolo).
A three-mirror anastigmat is an anastigmat telescope built with three curved mirrors, enabling it to minimize all three main optical aberrations – spherical aberration, coma, and astigmatism. This is primarily used to enable wide fields of view, much larger than possible with telescopes with just one or two curved surfaces.
For mirrors with parabolic surfaces, parallel rays incident on the mirror produce reflected rays that converge at a common focus. Other curved surfaces may also focus light, but with aberrations due to the diverging shape causing the focus to be smeared out in space. In particular, spherical mirrors exhibit spherical aberration. Curved mirrors ...