A method disclosed in this specification is an aberration measuring method
in which a light flux converged by a condensing optical system is made
incident on a optical system to be measured, the light flux that has
passed through the optical system to be measured is reflected by a
reflecting optical system having a center of curvature at a light
convergence point on a light emergence side of the optical system to be
measured is made incident on the optical system to be measure again, and
wavefront aberration of the optical system to be measured is detected as
interference fringes using the light flux that has passed through the
optical system to be measured again. Measurement is carried out while
changing the numerical aperture of the optical system to be measured to a
numerical aperture larger than a numerical aperture in the actual use,
thereby realizing highly precise measurement of the wavefront aberration
all over the effective numerical aperture of the optical system to be
measured.