Abstract

The quality of the information that is derived from two-dimensional astronomical images depends in a complex way on (i) the characteristics of the field imaged, (ii) the effect of the intervening medium, (iii) the properties of the telescope/detector combination, and (iv) the properties of the reduction methods. Clearly, the above factors are listed in order of increasing susceptibility to control; the most accessible route to better measurement is via better reduction methods. It follows that the first step in any attempt to design optimal observing procedures must be to ensure that the reduction algorithms employed can extract the maximum amount of information from the observational data.

© 1983 Optical Society of America