HST Aberrations and Alignment Determined by Phase Retrieval Algorithms

Abstract

It is important to determine very precisely the aberrations of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in order to (1) design correction optics to be included in replacement instruments, (2) align the secondary mirror of the HST’s Optical Telescope Assembly (OTA) and (3) form an analytic model of the system point-spread function (PSF) that can be used for image deblurring until the telescope is repaired.