Abstract

Developments in adaptive-optics technology have allowed astronomers using ground-based telescopes to overcome much of the loss of resolution due to aberrations introduced by the intervening atmosphere. Although adaptive-optics systems work quite well, they have their limitations and regimes of operation, and residual aberrations are often a problem. While research into expanding the capabilities of pre-detection correction continues, post-detection restoration of ground-based astronomical data is still desired and often required. Over the years, researchers have developed a variety of clever post-detection techniques for recovering image resolution, including stellar speckle imaging and deconvolution from wavefront sensing. We have been applying a novel data-collection and processing approach to correct for the effects of atmospheric seeing called phase-diverse speckle imaging. Phase-diverse speckle imaging has been used recently to restore images of solar granulation [1], and we present here the first application of this technique to nighttime astronomy data.

© 1995 Optical Society of America