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THE YOLO REFLECTOR

Arthur S. Leonard

     The Yolo Reflector is an unobstructed reflecting telescope consisting of two concave mirrors, both tilted relative to the approaching light path, and having the general configuration shown in Figure 1. Many variations on this basis design are possible, depending on aperture, focal length, and optical excellence desired.

     The design of the Yolo optical systems are based on the following general principles:

• 1.     When a mirror or lens in an otherwise perfect optical system is tilted, a wave-front aberration, or error, is introduced into each ray traversing the system. The magnitude of this error, in terms of path-length difference,  w, may be expressed as follows:^(1)*

• where the  C's  are constants whose values depend on the amount of convergance or divergance of the cone of rays striking the surface, the index of refraction (if a lens surface is involved), and the radius of curvature of the surface; is the angle of tilt of the optical axis of the surface relative to the approaching central ray; and  z  and designate the point (in polar coordinates) where the ray in question strikes the optical surface.

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^*References are listed at the end of the paper.

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