An Aragoscope is a telescope design based on diffraction around the edge of an occluding disc, named after French scientist

François Arago Dominique François Jean Arago ( ca, Domènec Francesc Joan Aragó), known simply as François Arago (; Catalan: ''Francesc Aragó'', ; 26 February 17862 October 1853), was a French mathematician, physicist, astronomer, freemason, supporter of t ...

Concept

The light diffracted around the edge of a perfectly circular occluder interferes constructively at the central axis, and the resolution at that point would be equal to the resolution of conventional lens with the same size of the occluder. Only light intensity would be lower. On this basis it would be possible to create a telescope by placing a suitable disc in space accompanied by a separate telescope some distance away along its axis. This concept has been explored by NASA and received Phase One funding in June 2014 by the

NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) is a NASA program for development of far reaching, long term advanced concepts by "creating breakthroughs, radically better or entirely new aerospace concepts". The program operated under the name N ...

(NIAC) program. It is important to note that this is a very different approach from that taken by another NASA project, the

New Worlds Mission The New Worlds Mission is a proposed project comprising a large occulter flying in formation with a space telescope designed to block the light of nearby stars in order to observe their orbiting exoplanets. The observations could be taken with ...

, which aims to use an occluder with "petals", otherwise known as a starshade, specifically designed to ''avoid'' diffraction onto the central axis.

References

{{reflist Telescopes

Concept

See also

References