KiwiStar: a design system for ultra-fast, high-resolution, broad- spectrum, wide angle catadioptric lenses

A new imaging system format is presented which permits near-zero values for all the classical Seidel aberrations at relative apertures faster than f/1, with field angles of up to 7°arc, ~10 resolved pixels, a 600nm bandwidth in the visible/NIR, and zero vignetting. Performance is limited only by high-order aberrations. The only fullaperture component is a spherical mirror; all other surfaces are spherical except for an optional small weak zonal corrector. The new design approach is suited to aperture diameters of 100mm to >2m when used with appropriate electronic detectors. Thermal infrared variants are possible. In general, at least one order improvement in data acquisition rate is possible compared to that of existing designs.