Analysis of a method for obtaining near-diffraction-limited information in the presence of atmospheric turbulence

A new technique (speckle interferometry) has been developed by Gezari, Labeyrie, and Stachnik, which allows the measurement of stellar diameters from a series of photographs obtained from large-aperture ground-based telescopes. The series of photographs is processed to obtain the Weiner spectrum of the photographic image, i.e., the ensemble-averaged modulus-squared Fourier transform obtained from the series of images. Gezari, Labeyrie, and Stachnik have measured stellar diameters as small as 0″.05, about 20 times better than is usually possible. In this paper, mathematical expressions are obtained for the Wiener spectrum of the image of a point source. As is well known, the Wiener spectrum of the image of an extended, incoherently radiating object, is expressible as a product of this point-source spectrum and the object spectrum. Calculations are performed using the Rytov approximation and assuming that the underlying atmospheric turbulence is describable by a Kolmogorov spectrum. Asymptotic closed-form expressions are obtained for angular frequencies much less than, and much greater than, the conventional seeing limit. In the latter case, the Wiener spectrum is found to be proportional to the optical transfer function.