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HST Image Restoration: Current Capabilities and Future Prospects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2016

Robert J. Hanisch
Affiliation:
Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 USA
Richard L. White
Affiliation:
Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 USA

Abstract

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The spherical aberration in the primary mirror of the Hubble Space Telescope causes more than 80% of the light from a point source to be spread into a halo of radius of 2–3 arcsec. The point spread function (PSF) is both time variant (resulting from spacecraft jitter and desorption of the secondary mirror support structure) and space variant (owing to the Cassegrain repeater optics in the Wide Field / Planetary Camera). A variety of image restoration algorithms have been utilized on HST data with some success, although optimal restorations require better modeling of the PSF and the development of efficient restoration algorithms that accommodate a spacevariant PSF. The first HST servicing mission (December 1993) will deploy a corrective optics system for the Faint Object Camera and the two spectrographs and a second generation WF/PC with internal corrective optics. As simulations demonstrate, however, the restoration algorithms developed now for aberrated images will be very useful for removing the remaining diffraction features and optimizing dynamic range in post-servicing mission data.

Type
Imaging Techniques
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1994 

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