Research Projects
Astronomical imaging
Dr Richard Lane and Professor Philip Bones
The optical effects of turbulence in the atmosphere significantly hamper the imaging of astronomical objects with ground-based telescopes. However, the effects for the turbulence can be largely compensated for by using adaptive optics. In such a system, a detector measures the wavefront distortion and a flexible mirror corrects for the distortion in real time. Our research program is concerned with methods for estimating the turbulence and development of optimal algorithms for use in adaptive optics system. We further seek to define the fundamental limits of these systems in terms of the available light and the severity of the turbulence.
Left: A long exposure image of a star taken without compensation of atmospheric turbulence (taken in collaboration with the Observatoire de Lyon, France). Right: The same star imaged with correction of atmospheric turbulence.
Sample publications:
R.A. Johnston and R.G. Lane, Modeling scintillation from an aperiodic Kolmogorov phase screen, Applied Optics-IP, 39, 4761-4769 (2000).
M.A. Van Dam and R.G. Lane, Tip/tilt estimation from defocused images, J. Opt. Soc. Am. A, 19, 745-752 (2002).
W.Y. Leung, M. Tallon and R.G. Lane, Centroid estimation by model-fitting from undersampled wavefront sensor images, Opt. Comm., in press, 201, 11-20, (2002).