Liquid crystal active optics correction for large space based optical systems

DETAILED DESCRIPTION The present invention combines the object scene-based phase diversity technique with a liquid crystal spatial light modulator to correct phase errors induced in large space-based telescopes due to optical misaligments when deployed and primary mirror imperfections.
Phase diversity permits the determination of wavefront phase errors without the necessity of a point source reference, thereby facilitating, for example, earth observations from space and simplifying the optical system.
The large but relatively slowly changing aberrations of large space-based optical systems as determined by a phase diversity sensor are then corrected by a multi-element liquid crystal spatial light modulator.