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Sharpest Images With "Lucky" Telescope

Posted by kdawson on from the palomar-ascendent dept.

igny writes "Astronomers from the University of Cambridge and Caltech have developed a new camera that gives much more detailed pictures of stars and nebulae than even the Hubble Space Telescope, and does it from the ground. A new technique called 'Lucky imaging' has been used to diminish atmospheric noise in the visible range, creating the most detailed pictures of the sky in history."

2 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. Spider-sense by BitwizeGHC · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That is really quite amazing, and reminds me a bit of the jumping spiders whose retinas vibrate to increase their optic resolution.

    --
    N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
  2. Re:Lucky Imaging by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Apologies for not having an account - but I would really like to ask a question for someone who understands the process.

    the wikipedia entry on this subject http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_imaging states that new procedures take, '... advantage of the fact that the atmosphere does not "blur" astronomical images, but generally produces multiple sharp copies of the image'.

    Does the correction algorithm apply a single vector to each image (ie the entire frame is shifted in unity) to produce the composite, or is a vector field applied to every pixel point in the image to shift individually the pixels toward their correct centres? Also if it is pointwise what type of transform is being applied, affine , perspective etc.