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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 September 2012
In this paper, the far-field pattern of a Cassegrain reflector is formulated. A novel illumination function is used to approximate the field distribution at the aperture of the reflector. The defined illumination function takes into account the central aperture blockage created by the subreflector. Using the illumination function, a closed-form expression describing the far-field radiation pattern of the Cassegrain reflector is formulated. The radiation pattern obtained from the derived equation is compared with the results obtained from physical optics and physical theory of diffraction. The results are found to be consistent with each other. It is found that the derived results show an impressive accuracy of 99.8% over the main-lobe region. The accuracy is found to be over 91 and 84% for the first and second significant side-lobe region, respectively, which can be considered satisfactory for many applications.