EVALUATING MICROSCOPE-OBJECTIVE QUALITY ON THE BASIS OF A TELEVISION COMPUTER-ANALYSIS OF AIRY PATTERNS

This paper describes a method and apparatus for quantitatively evaluat ing the quality of microscope objectives from the image of the diffrac tion spot. The possibilities of this system are demonstrated, using as an example the measurement of the point-spread function, the modulati on transfer function, and the geometrical and photometric characterist ics of various objectives, including wide-aperture objectives, over th e entire field of view in a wide spectral range. It is shown that ligh t scattering can be evaluated at the same time.