Wide-Field-of-View Longwave Camera for the Characterization of the Earth’s Outgoing Longwave Radiation

The measurement of the Earth’s Outgoing Longwave Radiation plays a key role in climate change monitoring. This measurement requires a compact wide-field-of-view camera, covering the 8–14 µm wavelength range, which is not commercially available. Therefore, we present a novel thermal wide-field-of-view camera optimized for space applications, featuring a field of view of 140° to image the Earth from limb to limb, while enabling a high spatial resolution of 4.455 km at nadir. Our cost-effective design comprises three germanium lenses, of which only one has a single aspherical surface. It delivers a very good image quality, as shown by the nearly-diffraction-limited performance. Radiative transfer simulations indicate excellent performance of our camera design, enabling an estimate of the broadband Outgoing Longwave Radiation with a random relative error of 4.8%.

HIGH RESOLUTION CAMERA DESIGN PLANNING THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS FOR DRIVING SYSTEMS

Background. Analysis of statistical data showed that in most cases the cause of the accident is driver error and, as a consequence, violation of traffic rules. In this regard, over the past 10 years, active developments in the field of recognition of road signs and other obstacles in the path of a car have been actively developing. Car manufacturers offer ready-made built-in systems, mounted behind the interior rearview mirror and connected to the car’s on-board computer, which carries out further control of the car in a critical situation. The main disadvantage of these systems of this class is the low range of recognition of road signs, the dependence of optical parameters on temperature and low light sensitivity. Objective. The purpose of the paper is to model an athermal objective for a high-resolution camera, investigate the characteristics of lenses depending on the ambient temperature. Methods. Analysis and modeling of objectives, lenses, optical glass from different materials. Results. A high-resolution camera objective for all types of cars is proposed. An athermal objective was developed for a high-resolution camera. Conclusions. The optimized athermal design of the visible spectrum objective for long-range car cameras is considered. Car cameras typically have a fixed focus, and forward-facing cameras typically require relatively long focal lengths to provide information about distant objects. The optical system for these cameras should provide high resolution, as well as operate in a wide range of ambient temperatures. The camera design parameters are derived from the functional requirements of road sign recognition at a distance of 200 m. The objective design has five lenses with spherical surfaces. The objective has a relative aperture of f/2 and a modulation transfer function (MTF) of more than 0.5 at 111 l/mm over the entire temperature range.

Final design and on-sky testing of the iLocater SX acquisition camera: broad-band single-mode fibre coupling

ABSTRACT Enabling efficient injection of light into single-mode fibres (SMFs) is a key requirement in realizing diffraction-limited astronomical spectroscopy on ground-based telescopes. SMF-fed spectrographs, facilitated by the use of adaptive optics (AO), offer distinct advantages over comparable seeing-limited designs, including higher spectral resolution within a compact and stable instrument volume, and a telescope independent spectrograph design. iLocater is an extremely precise radial velocity (EPRV) spectrograph being built for the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT). We have designed and built the front-end fibre injection system, or acquisition camera, for the SX (left) primary mirror of the LBT. The instrument was installed in 2019 and underwent on-sky commissioning and performance assessment. In this paper, we present the instrument requirements, acquisition camera design, as well as results from first-light measurements. Broad-band SMF coupling in excess of 35 per cent (absolute) in the near-infrared (0.97–1.31 ${\mu {\rm m}}$) was achieved across a range of target magnitudes, spectral types, and observing conditions. Successful demonstration of on-sky performance represents both a major milestone in the development of iLocater and in making efficient ground-based SMF-fed astronomical instruments a reality.