Patent ID: 8044332

Claim:
An optical system comprising: a telescope assembly; and a hybrid instrument in electrical communication with the telescope assembly, the hybrid instrument being configured to perform a fine guidance operation while simultaneously being configured to perform wavefront sensing operation on image data received by the telescope assembly, the hybrid instrument comprising a pickoff mirror configured to receive image data from the telescope assembly and direct the image data along a first radiation beam path, a first beam splitter disposed along a first radiation beam path and configured to (i) receive a first radiation beam, (ii) allow a portion of the first radiation beam to pass through as a first split beam, and (iii) reflect a portion of the first radiation beam as a second split beam along a second split beam path, a second beam splitter disposed along the second split beam path and configured to allow a portion of the second split beam to pass through as a third split beam along a third split beam path, and configured to reflect a portion of the second split beam as a fourth split beam along a fourth split beam path, and one or more detectors disposed along the first split beam path, the fourth split beam path, and the third split beam path.