Effects of predetection atmospheric compensation and postdetection image processing on imagery collected at a ground-based telescope

摘要

Short exposure imagery of single and binary stars was collected at the 1.6 m Air Force Maui Optical Station (AMOS) telescope, using a low-noise CCD camera. Atmospheric turbulence effects were partially mitigated using the Compensated Imaging System (CIS), a predetection wavefront sensor and deformable mirror adaptive optical system. We present images and power spectra from both partially compensated and uncompensated short exposure simulations and field data. Our results illustrate that the use of lower-cost partially compensating adaptive optical systems combined with post-detection processing provides a viable alternative to expensive, fully compensated adaptive imaging systems for achieving high-resolution imagery through the atmosphere.