Abstract

The turbulent atmosphere of the Earth limits the resolution of conventional astrography to about 1 arcsec. This resolution is much lower than the theoretical diffraction limit of a large telescope. The quantitative limitations imposed by atmospheric turbulence on image quality for both short- and long-exposure images using statistical methods are developed in order to quantify this problem. The limitations were studied in terms of the transfer function of the telescope-atmosphere system, and the Fourier frequency components of an image of a binary star. The quantitative limitations imposed by the quantum nature of light on image quality are also studied.

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