Aberration Theory
4.1 INTRODUCTION
In the preceding chapter, imaging was considered to be ideal or stigmatic. This means that rays from a point source P that pass through an optical system will converge to a point located at its Gaussian image P′. In a like manner, the portion of wavefronts from P passing through the optical system will converge as portions of spherical wavefronts toward P′. In other words, the point sources are mapped onto the image surface as point images according to the laws of Gaussian image formation presented in the prior chapter. Deviations from ideal image formation are the result of defects or aberrations inherent in the optical system.
As will be discussed in this chapter, it is possible that the actual image ...
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