Intensity peak tracking in extended-object astronomical imaging

Abstract

Adaptive optics are becoming more common at astronomical facilities. At sites such as Mauna Kea, near-IR seeing can be good enough that aberration power is largely confined to tip-tilt, even with larger telescopes. Accordingly, many low-order systems are being planned and studied, with simple tilt compensation schemes being used at several observatories [1,2,3] for near-IR imaging. Image motion can also be removed in post­detection processing if an ensemble of short-exposure images is collected. For either real-time or post­detection processing, proper choice of a tilt removal scheme can improve resolution in long-exposure images.