Image Reconstruction Using Large Optical Telescopes.
Abstract
This report concerns a digital television detector system with the capability to identify individual photon events. Using this system we have applied speckle techniques to objects fainter than +17 magnitude. We have developed data reduction and calibration methods that provide size and shape information accurate to better than 5% at the telescope diffraction limit, and have produced diffraction limited images for several targets. By extending speckle techniques to accurate measurement of low surface brightness objects we have measured diameters for over a dozen asteroids and possible detected binary systems, directly resolved and imaged the Pluto/Charon system, resolved a multiple QSO (quasar) and we have mapped and imaged asymmetries in the envelope around the supergiant star Alpha Orionis. A principle objective of this program was to show the utility of speckle interferometry for studying Earth-orbital satellites. This task required developing pointing and tracking algorithms for satellite acquisition and tracking using conventional astronomical telescopes. We successfully accomplished this objective and produced the first optical resolution of a high orbit satellite, a Soviet Molniya.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 15, 1982
- Accession Number
- ADA120410
Entities
People
- E. K. Hege
- N. J. Woolf
- P. A. Strittmatter