Correcting image distortion with fiber-optic tapers.

ABSTRACT

We examine an ultraviolet camera used aboard a rotating spacecraft where the image motion due to spacecraft spin is canceled by synchronously stepping the image charge accumulating in a charge coupled detector. Critical to this procedure is the flattening of a velocity field associated with the spherical focal surface of the Burch configuration camera. We show that this can be efficiently accomplished by a tapered fiber-optic bundle having one surface figured to a cylinder whose axis lies along the charge-stepping direction.