Field Aberrations in Wide Aperture Optical Systems

Abstract

It is shown how the considerations which lead to the sine condition may be simply extended to take into account the aberrations which depend on the square of the field but include all powers of the aperture. In this way the relations known in primary aberration theory between pupil and image aberrations are reinterpreted and extended. The formulae are used to evaluate the field aberrations of a wide angle high numerical aperture flat field objective and comparison is made with the result of accurate trigonometrical calculation.