space@mit-mc (02/19/85)
From: Dale.Amon@CMU-RI-FAS A number of people have pointed out the flaw in the idea I presented previously. And that is that each point on the target object emits a spherical wave front. The telescope captures a small solid angle's worth of the wavefront from that point and focuses it to a single point on the objective. Likewise for every point in the field of view. Thus there is an n:1 mapping. A collimated imager misses this. As others have pointed out to me, the phase information must be retained to electronically sythesize the image that the primary would generate. I suspect it will be possible eventually, but this problem explains why it has not been seriously considered at this time. Oh well, back to designing costumes for the first outdoor rock performance at Tranquility Base National Park... (Or maybe at the Frau Mauro Golf Course, or Tycho Colliseum)