Diffraction Limit of a Telescope

Moisés Aparicio – RA:249761

Bruno Finazzi – RA:168009
Abstract

1. Introduction

An optical imaging system, such as a

telescope, can be limited by factors like the
different types of aberrations. But, in the absence
of any type of this aberration, the limiting factor
of our system will be the Diffraction Limit.
Telescopes are our main tool for observing and
understanding the universe, so solving the
resolution problems one might find is very
important. The problem of the diffraction limit of
a telescope is also referred as Theorical
Resolving Power, which is the ability a telescope
has of identifying two different objects with a
small angle or separation between them. Figure 2: Wavefronts of a point source at infinity arriving
In this work we will illustrate how the diffraction at the telescope.(Roy & Clarke, 2003)
pattern associated with the light intensity of a Due to the way the telescope works, they
star behaves, and hopefully this will help to gain capture those wavefronts and reshape them to
more understanding of the diffraction limit from an image. This process causes an
phenomena and how to work with it to get a interference of the light, and produce an
better image of a desired system with more than interference pattern. This is the pattern we
one point source of light. need to study to understand the behave of the
2. Theorical Aspects intensity of light in a telescope.
In this case, the opening of the telescope is a
circle, so we are going to study this symmetry in
The Theorical Resolving Power of a order to obtain a proper equation that gives us
telescope with a good design and the the intensity of the light coming from the star.
corresponding adjustments made could be at
least slightly achieved. Any radiating source can
be considered to rise wavefronts, this wavefront
expands from the radiating source at some
rate.(Roy & Clarke, 2003)
For our studying case of a star, this source can be
considered to being at the infinity, and its
wavefronts to be parallel when they arrive at the
telescope.

Figure 3: Geometry in the case of a diffraction caused by

a circular opening. (Zilio, 2009)
We will be doing the integration in y, calling our
radius R and calculating a corresponding area
element da.
𝑑𝑎 = 2√𝑅2 − 𝑦 2 𝑑𝑦

Figure 1: Point source irradiating wavefronts.(Roy & Figure 4: Corresponding element of surface for the
integration along y axis.
Clarke, 2003)
 Using the Fraunhofer approximation from The important concepts to keep in mid are the
(Zilio, 2009) and adapting it to our new surface limits of diffraction we can get; those limits are
element, we obtain that the amplitude of the the Rayleigh Criterion and the Dawes Limit.
wave at a point P illustrated in figure 3 is: The Rayleigh criterion states that two images
𝑅 are just resolvable when the center of the
𝑈(𝑃) ≈ 𝐶𝑒 𝑖𝑘𝑟0 ∫ 𝑒 𝑖𝑘𝑦𝑠𝑖𝑛(𝜃) 2 √𝑅2 − 𝑦 2𝑑𝑦 … (1) diffraction pattern of one is directly over the
−𝑅
first minimum of the diffraction pattern of the
Making a variable change according to our other.(Zarensky, n.d.)
problem:
𝑦 The Dawes limit, in the other hand, is an
𝑢= empirical limit obtained trough observing
𝑅
𝜌 = 𝑘𝑅𝑠𝑖𝑛(𝜃) binary stars, and it proves that the limit with
the image of two stars can be resolved is when
Hence, equation (1): the intensity in the middle of the stars falls by a
+1 value of 30%. When this occurs, it is proved that
𝑈(𝑃) ≈ 2𝐶𝑅 2 𝑒𝑖𝑘𝑟0 ∫ 𝑒 𝑖𝜌𝑢 √1 − 𝑢2 𝑑𝑢 the least separation will be 116 divided the
−1
diameter of the telescope.(Zarensky, n.d.)
This is a tabulated integral, which value is:
𝜆
𝜋𝐽1 (𝜌) 𝜃 = 1.22 ∗ ( ) … 𝑅𝑎𝑦𝑙𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ 𝐶𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑛
𝐷
𝜌
116
Where 𝐽1 is the Bessel Function of order 1. This 𝜃= … 𝐷𝑎𝑤𝑒𝑠 𝐿𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑡
𝐷
way we get our intensity as: Figure 7: Rayleigh Criterion and Dawes Limit
2𝐽1 (𝜌) 2 𝐽1(𝜌) 2 formulation.
𝐼(𝑃) = (𝐶𝜋𝑅 2 )2 | | = 4𝐼0 | |
𝜌 𝜌 Thereby, if we can or can’t resolve an image will
For simplicity, and taking knowledge that the be defined by those limits, the Dawes limit let us
factor 4𝐼0 just affects the scale of our Intensity, have a resolving power of closer stars, while the
we will express Intensity as: Rayleigh criterion let us resolve the image if the airy
disks nearly touch.
𝐽1 (𝜌) 2 𝐽1(𝜌) 2
𝐼(𝑃) = | | =| |
𝜌 𝜌

Figure 5: Deduction of the formula for the light intensity

given the case of a circular diffraction.
This formulation we just get is the same as
the one given by Exercise 5.4 from (Newman,
2012), which is the objective of this work. The
formula is:
𝐽1(𝑘𝑟) 2
𝐼(𝑟) = ( )
𝑘𝑟
Figure 6: Intensity of light formula given in (Newman,
2012).
Figure 8: Diffraction limit to resolution of two point-
𝐽1 (𝑥) 1
These formulas obey that lim = . object images in incoherent light is approached when the
𝑥→0 𝑥 2
two are of near equal, optimum intensity.(Mahajan, n.d.)
Also, the zeros of this Intensity equation will
give us the points where the intensity nullifies,
and so we can for example, calculate the angles
at which this occurs. Another relation we might
find useful, is the one between the amplitude of
the wave and the intensity of light. Intensity is
the square of the amplitude; this will prove
useful when calculating new waves as we go
deep into the scope of this exercise.
Now that we are able to calculate the intensity
and the diffraction patterns of the point sources,
we will see the relations we can get when more
than one point source is present.
 resulting in this minimum epsilon being the
Rayleigh Criterion itself.

Once we obtained this epsilon value, we proceeded

to plot the Intensities and generate the intensity
graphic for each studied case. Below, the images
produced by our code.

4. Results

In this apart we will show the results

obtained by our code, evolving the new functions
created from the epsilon value and its graphics.

Figure 9: Diffraction limit to resolution of two point-

object images in coherent light is approached when the
two are of near equal, optimum intensity.(Mahajan, n.d.)

3. Methods

The end goal of this Exercise is to use

integration methods to calculate the Bessel
Functions, and whit that calculations use the
Order 1 Bessel Function to calculate the intensity
with the given formula. With the results, make a
density graphic of this intensity to obtain it
Figure 10: Diffraction pattern caused by a punctual font
diffraction pattern.
at infinity when it goes through a circular aperture.
The code we developed solved the problem
asked, but What will happen if we have more
than one source point? This question is
important, because there are in our universe
some binary stars systems, even triple star
systems, that works as more than one source
point. In this case, the angle between the stars
and the Resolving Power of the telescope are
crucial for being capable of observe these stars
and identify them as binary systems.
Procedures:

First step taken was make a plot of the Intensity

vs the 𝑘𝑟 value. This way we obtain a graphic that
complements the density graphic asked by the
exercise, where the zeros of the graphic match the
dark rings in the diffraction pattern.
Figure 11: Intensity of the light received by the telescope.
Next, for our objective of plotting diffraction
patterns caused by observing binary systems, is to
find the appropriate functions. To do this, we
considered an epsilon value to sum and subtract
from our initial function to get two functions with
the same wavelength value. This epsilon value
must be in the order of either Rayleigh Criterion or
Dawes Limit to be resolved as two separate
images.
To find appropriate values for the epsilon, we
proceeded to find the minimums of the functions,
From this graphic, we found that the
minimum falls in a point on the X axis equal to
0.30491𝑘. This value, if we get rid of the k equals
the radius of the first minimum in the X axis. We
can see that this value is a very good
approximation of the value for the Rayleigh
Criterion
500𝑛𝑚
𝜃 = 1.22 ∗ ( ) = 0.305 ∗ 10−6
𝑚
But, in the kr axis, the units are in the order of the
micrometers, so we have 0.305 ≈ 0.30491. This
 fact gives us reassurance that we are in a correct
path.
With what we have learned from this graphics,
we proceeded to calculate our new functions to
simulate two points, in this case with a phase of
0, and the epsilon separation within the
maximums is half the minimum of the initial
function.

Figure 14: Graphic of the diffraction pattern

generated by two coherent lights with a certain phase.

Figure 12: Graphic of the amplitudes of the two new

functions, considering the coherent light.
Now, with the new functions and having in
mind that this case is when the light is coherent,
we obtain the following graphic:

Figure 15: Graphic of the diffraction pattern

generated by two coherent lights with a certain phase.
Once again, our result matches the
expected as per Figure 9.
Now, we go further ahead and study the cases
when this light is incoherent, and we will try the
plotting at the two previously discussed
diffraction limits.
First, using the Dawes Limit for resolution as
our parameter to determinate the value of the
epsilon, we obtain the following results:

Figure 13: Graphic of the diffraction pattern

generated by two coherent lights.
We see that this graphic is pretty similar to
the one showed on the Figure 9, for the given
parameters.
With a similar proceeding, we can obtain the
graphics for the case these coherent lights have
a phase between them of value 𝜋 .

Figure 16: Amplitudes and resulting intensity of two

incoherent lights considering the Dawes Limit.
 5. Discussion
Figure 17: Diffraction pattern generated by two
incoherent lights at the Dawes Limit.
Now, we will plot our graphics at the
Rayleigh Criterion, which is the most used
criterion for resolving the diffraction patterns.
6. Conclusion
Figure 18: Amplitudes and resulting intensity of two
incoherent lights considering the Rayleigh Criterion.
7. References
Figure 19: Diffraction pattern generated by two
incoherent lights with the Rayleigh Criterion.
Comparing our results with the theorical
values, and our graphics with the ones presents
in the works of (Kitchin, 2003) and (Mahajan,
n.d.), we can say that they are pretty much
similar to the expected values and graphics one
will find doing these measures. For the case of
the Dawes Limits, the rule says this limit is when
the intensity of the light drops about 30% of its
maximum, an we calculated a drop of about
27,8%. Error like this one, and possible others in
the graphical representations can be due to the
theorical approach to these situations, which can
be corrected by using real measurements for the
data analysis.
With these two limits we used to plot our
graphics and diffraction patters, we are able to
identify that there are two different points from
where the light is coming, making a fair
representation of the limit that telescopes suffer,
but did not take in count the fact that the angle
between stars may vary and it can change
everything in these results.
This work helped us to understand further
the limitations we have while studying the
universe, in this case we did much simplification
of a real telescope problem, which will include
lens aberrations, diffraction depending on the
angle of the stars observed and even other type
of aberration like gravitational lenses. Our
results where pretty close to the theorical values,
and our code resolved all the tasks we needed
using the things we learned along the curse, such
as integration methods, minimum finding and
plotting axis graphics and density graphics.
Kitchin, C. R. (2003). Astrophysical Techniques.
Mahajan, V. N. (n.d.). Optical Imaging and
Aberrations: Vol. Part II.
Newman, M. (2012). Computational Physics.
Roy, A., & Clarke, D. (2003). Astronomy:
Principles and Practice.
Zarensky, E. (n.d.). Rayleigh Limit / Dawes Limit.
Zilio, S. C. (2009). Óptica Moderna Fundamentos
e aplicações.