Wide-angle stray-light reduction for a spaceborne optical hemispherical imager

Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, UCSD, La Jolla, CA 92093-0424, U.S.A.

C.M. Korendyke
E.O. Hulbert Center for Space Research, Naval Research Laboratory,
Washington D.C. 20375.

Abstract

We describe a simple visible-light stray-background-reducing baffle, suitable for use on a stabilized interplanetary platform. The design is a corrallike enclosure with five concentric walls. The baffle reduces direct sunlight and reflections from illuminated portions of the spacecraft by a factor of 10¹², provided that all these lie beyond at least a hemisphere centered on the viewing aperture. With this condition these bright sources do not directly illuminate within the outermost wall of the corral, and diffraction over the wall tops is the dominant mechanism by which light reaches the corral interior. We present design calculations for such a corral, as well as a laboratory measurement confirming the basic design assumption.