Data fusion and photometric restoration

Norbert Pirzkal; Richard N. Hook

doi:10.1117/12.447185

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1 November 2001 Data fusion and photometric restoration

Norbert Pirzkal, Richard N. Hook

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Proceedings Volume 4477, Astronomical Data Analysis; (2001) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.447185
Event: International Symposium on Optical Science and Technology, 2001, San Diego, CA, United States

Abstract

The current generation of 8-10m optical ground-based telescopes have a symbiotic relationship with space telescopes. For direct imaging in the optical the former can collect photons relatively cheaply but the latter can still achieve, even in the era of adaptive optics, significantly higher spatial resolution, point-spread function stability and astrometric fidelity over fields of a few arcminutes. The large archives of HST imaging already in place, when combined with the ease of access to ground-based data afforded by the virtual observatory currently under development, will make space-ground data fusion a powerful tool for the future. We describe a photometric image restoration method that we have developed which allows the efficient and accurate use of high-resolution space imaging of crowded fields to extract high quality photometry from very crowded ground-based images. We illustrate the method using HST and ESO VLT/FORS imaging of a globular cluster and demonstrate quantitatively the photometric measurements quality that can achieved using the data fusion approach instead of just using data from just one telescope. This method can handle most of the common difficulties encountered when attempting this problem such as determining the geometric mapping to the requisite precision, deriving the PSF and the background.

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Norbert Pirzkal and Richard N. Hook "Data fusion and photometric restoration", Proc. SPIE 4477, Astronomical Data Analysis, (1 November 2001); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.447185

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