Broadband and wide field of view foveated imaging system in space

A new kind of optical remote camera with wide field of view in space is presented, which can work in broad wave bands with all-reflective optical systems. Microelectromechanical system deformable mirrors create a variety of image quality across the entire field of view and dynamically correct all the geometrical aberrations at any field angle. After correction, the performance of the system is close to the diffraction limit. The off-axis optical system with three mirrors is introduced to simplify and miniaturize the optical system. The variable resolution is used to reduce the difficulty of the high-resolution large-aperture reflective system and to minimize the bandwidth requirements for data transmission. (C) 2008 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers. [DOI: 10.1117/1.3000432]