Development, fabrication, and testing of an anamorphic imaging snap-together freeform telescope

The fabrication chain for the development of an a focal all aluminum telescope using four anamorphic aspherical mirrors is described. The optical and mechanical design are intended to achieve an enhanced system integration with reduced alignment effort by arranging two optical surfaces monolithically on common mirror bodies. Freeform machining is carried out by a hybrid fabrication approach combining diamond turning and diamond milling in the same machine setup. A direct figure correction of diamond turned aluminum mirrors by magneto-rheological finishing is presented, resulting in high-precision athermal mirror modules with excellent figure properties. The interferometric system test highlights the diffraction limited telescope performance and the feasibility of the chosen approaches for freeform machining and mechanical integration. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America