Practical Guide To Off-Axis Parabolic Mirror Alignment

Drawing upon over 50 years experience in producing the most demanding high precision off-axis parabolic (OAP) mirrors - Optical Surfaces Ltd. has produced a new 10-page practical alignment guide to enable users to get top performance from their optics.

The illustrated alignment guide includes an introduction to OAP geometry as well as step-by step instructions on initial alignment ; tips to correct for errors in focus & tilt, set off-axis distance and rotation and a final alignment procedure to ensure optimised performance.

Off-axis paraboloids (OAPs), sometimes refered to off-axis parabolic mirrors or off-axis parabola, provide an unobstructed aperture allowing complete access to the focal region as well as reducing the size and minimising the weight of a design. They are especially suitable for broadband or multiple wavelength applications due to their completely achromatic performance. All together these advantages produce a cost-effective solution for many optical design problems with no compromise in performance.

For a copy of the new 'Practical Guide to OAP Alignment' please contact Optical Surfaces Ltd. on telephone on +44-208-668-6126 or email sales@optisurf.com.

About Optical Surfaces Ltd.
Production approved to ISO 9001-2008 the quality of OAPs from Optical Surfaces Ltd. is ensured using a range of interferometric and surface test measurements on all optics leaving the factory. Benefiting from over 50 years experience in producing the most demanding high precision optics and optical systems - Optical Surfaces OAPs are used by many leading research establishments and companies around the world. Typical applications for off axis paraboloids include high power laser focusing, focusing upon astronomical objects, collimating reference wavefronts, beam expansion, MTF measurement, MRTD testing and bore sight alignment for missile guidance systems.