Image-spectrum signal-to-noise-ratio improvements by statistical frame selection for adaptive-optics imaging through atmospheric turbulence

Michael C. Roggemann; Craig A. Stoudt; Byron M. Welsh

doi:10.1117/12.181250

1 October 1994 Image-spectrum signal-to-noise-ratio improvements by statistical frame selection for adaptive-optics imaging through atmospheric turbulence

Michael C. Roggemann, Craig A. Stoudt, Byron M. Welsh

Author Affiliations +

Optical Engineering, Vol. 33, Issue 10, (October 1994). https://doi.org/10.1117/12.181250

Abstract

Adaptive-optics systems have been used to overcome some of the effects of atmospheric turbulence on large-aperture astronomical telescopes. However, the correction provided by adaptive optics cannot restore diffraction-limited performance, due to discretized spatial sampling of the wavefront, limited degrees of freedom in the adaptive-optics system, and wavefront sensor measurement noise. Field experience with adaptive-optics imaging systems making short-exposure image measurements has shown that some of the images are better than others in the sense that the better images have higher resolution. This is a natural consequence of the statistical nature of the compensated optical transfer function in an adaptive-optics telescope. Hybrid imaging techniques have been proposed that combine adaptive optics and postdetection image processing to improve the high-spatial-frequency information of images. Performance analyses of hybrid methods have been based on prior knowledge of the ensemble statistics of the underlying random process. Improved image-spectrum SNRs have been predicted, and in some cases experimentally demonstrated. In this paper we address the issue of selecting and processing the best images from a finite data set of compensated short-exposure images. Image sharpness measures are used to select the data subset to be processed. Comparison of the image-spectrum SNRs for the cases of processing the entire data set and processing only the selected subset of the data shows a broad range of practical cases where processing the selected subset results in superior SNR.

Citation Download Citation

Michael C. Roggemann, Craig A. Stoudt, and Byron M. Welsh "Image-spectrum signal-to-noise-ratio improvements by statistical frame selection for adaptive-optics imaging through atmospheric turbulence," Optical Engineering 33(10), (1 October 1994). https://doi.org/10.1117/12.181250

Published: 1 October 1994

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available