Wolter telescope

Wolter telescope Type I

A Wolter telescope is a telescope for X-rays that only uses grazing incidence optics – mirrors that reflect X-rays at very shallow angles.

Problems with conventional telescope designs

Conventional telescope designs require reflection or refraction in a manner that does not work well for X-rays. Visible light optical systems use either lenses or mirrors aligned for nearly normal incidence – that is, the light waves travel nearly perpendicular to the reflecting or refracting surface. Conventional mirror telescopes work poorly with X-rays, since X-rays that strike mirror surfaces nearly perpendicularly are either transmitted or absorbed – not reflected.

Lenses for visible light are made of transparent materials with an index of refraction substantially different from 1, but all known X-ray-transparent materials have index of refraction essentially the same as 1,[1] so X-ray lenses are not practical.

X-ray mirror telescope design

Wolter telescope Type II

X-rays mirrors can be built, but only if the angle from the plane of reflection is very low (typically 10 arc-minutes to 2 degrees).[2] These are called glancing (or grazing) incidence mirrors. In 1952, Hans Wolter outlined three ways a telescope could be built using only this kind of mirror.[3][4] These are called Wolter telescopes of type I, II, and III. Each has different advantages and disadvantages.[5]

Wolter telescope Type III

Wolter's key innovation was that by using two mirrors it is possible to create a telescope with a usably wide field of view. In contrast, a grazing incidence telescope with just one parabolic mirror could focus X-rays, but only very close to the centre of the field of view as it would suffer from extreme coma.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Spiller, E (2003). "X-Ray Optics". Encyclopedia of Optical Engineering. Taylor & Francis. doi:10.1081/E-EOE-120009497.
  2. ↑ Singh, Kulinder Pal (July 2005). "Techniques in X-ray Astronomy" (pdf). Resonance. 10 (7): 8–20.
  3. ↑ Wolter, Hans (1952). "Glancing incidence mirror systems as imaging optics for X-rays". Annalen der Physik. 10: 94. Bibcode:1952AnP...445...94W. doi:10.1002/andp.19524450108.
  4. ↑ Wolter, Hans (1952). "A generalized Schwarzschild mirror system for use at glancing incidence for X-ray imaging". Annalen der Physik. 10: 286. Bibcode:1952AnP...445..286W. doi:10.1002/andp.19524450410.
  5. ↑ Petre, Rob. "X-ray Imaging Systems". NASA.
  • Last, Arndt. "Wolter-optics". Retrieved 8 Sep 2016.
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