RayJack ONE - Celestial objects as light sources

Celestial objects as light sources in RayJack ONE®

For space optical instruments, the earth or other celestial objects are often dominant stray light sources. Creating such sources manually and assigning radiometric properties correctly, is tedious and prone to errors.

RayJack ONE® offers a very convenient solution: a light source created on the entrance aperture of the system, with rays coming from an angular cone with uniform radiance. The user may adjust to non-uniform radiance scenes easily by setting an apodization. The angular cone may even range “beyond the horizon” of the aperture, as it is the case, for example, for a satellite in low earth orbit observing stars.

The picture shows earth light scattered into the front baffle of the instrument.