Imaging of Extended Objects Through a Turbulent Atmosphere

Abstract

The extended Huygens-Fresnel principle is used to derive an explicit expression for the image plane illuminance distribution of an extended object with an arbitrary liminance emittance distribution. The combined simultaneous effects of attenuation, background luminance, and atmospheric turbulence are given. A quantitative comparison of these effects is made, and their contribution to the overall loss in resolution is given. In particular, the authors derive a quantitative expression for the point spread function of the combined atmospheric-optical system. Explicit expressions are derived for both the atmospheric-optical system modulation transfer function (MTF) and image plane modulation. Numerical results for the image plane modulation are presented for imaging both up and down along an atmospheric path.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 28, 1973
Accession Number
AD0763717

Entities

People

  • Hal T. Yura
  • Richard F. Lutomirski

Organizations

  • The Aerospace Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics
  • Air Platforms
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Altitude
  • Atmospheric Motion
  • Attenuation
  • Chemical Reactions
  • Emittance
  • Frequency
  • Geometry
  • Losses
  • Materials
  • Materials Science
  • Modulation
  • Physics
  • Physics Laboratories
  • Spherical Waves
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Transfer Functions

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Calculus or Mathematical Analysis
  • Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).
  • Spectroscopy.