Abstract: A telescope objective system (10) is formed by a primary lens having a single lens element (A) aligned on a common optical axis (11) with a secondary lens having two lens elements (B,C) the shape and power distribution of lens elements (A,B,C) being such as to compensate for monochromatic aberration of the system, each lens element (A,B,C) being made of a material which has a useful spectral bandpass in the infrared wavelength region and lens elements (B,C) having refractive surfaces (16, 15, 14, 13) intercepting the optical axis (11) which are substantially spherical, the system having a planar image surface (11) and an effective focal length greater than the axial distance between the image surface (11) and the distal refractive surface (18) formed by the primary lens element (A). Primary lens element (A) is positively powered and made of germanium and at least one of the secondary lens elements (B,C) is made of a Chalcogenidae glass such that the system (10) is achromatic in the infrared wavelength region.

Abstract: An afocal telescope (20) comprises an objective system (21) and an eyepiece system (23) aligned on a common optical axis (19), the objective system (21) forming a real image (24) of radiation received from object space (17) and eyepiece system (23) being arranged to provide a magnified view of the object space scene at a pupil .phi. in image space (18). The eyepiece system (23) is formed by a triplet of lens elements A,B,C of which A and B are positively powered and C is negatively powered. Element C has a concave refractive surface (6) adjacent image (24) and a convex refractive surface (5) which is separated from the adjoining refractive surface (4) of element B by an air space which, in the axial direction, is substantially zero on the axis (19) and which progressively increases in magnitude as the distance off axis increases.