KH-9 Hexagon - Main Camera

Main Camera

The main camera system was designed to take stereo images, with a forward looking camera on the port side, and an aft looking camera on the starboard side. The camera optical layout is a f/3.0 folded Wright Camera, with a focal length of 60 in (1.5 m). The system aperture is defined by a 20 in (0.51 m) diameter aspheric corrector plate, which corrects the spherical aberration of the Wright design. In each of the cameras the ground image passes through the corrector plate to a 45 degree angle flat mirror, which reflects the light to a 0.91 m (36 in) diameter concave main mirror. The main mirror directs the light through an opening in the flat mirror and through a four-element lens system onto the film platen. The cameras could scan contiguous areas up to 120 degree wide, and achieved a ground resolution better than 2 ft (0.61 m) during the later phase of the project.

Read more about this topic:  KH-9 Hexagon

Famous quotes containing the words main and/or camera:

    I knew that the wall was the main thing in Quebec, and had cost a great deal of money.... In fact, these are the only remarkable walls we have in North America, though we have a good deal of Virginia fence, it is true.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    The camera is a killing chamber, which speeds up the time it claims to be conserving. Like coffins exhumed and prised open, the photographs put on show what we were and what we will be again.
    Peter Conrad (b. 1948)