<title>Automatic alignment system for telescopes</title>

Abstract

From the local wavefront slope measurement given by a Shack Hartmann wavefront sensor (SH), it is possible to evaluate the decentering aberrations introduced by optical system misalignments. These slopes can be expressed as a function of the centered system aberrations and of the optical axis displacements in the image and pupil planes. After calibration of the wavefront sensor, the system alignment can be, for small aberrations, automatically controlled. The validity of the concept was proved on a representative observation system.