The ATST visible broadband imager: a case study for real-time image reconstruction and optimal data handling

Friedrich Wöger; Han Uitenbroek; Alexandra Tritschler; William McBride; David Elmore; Thomas Rimmele; Bruce Cowan; Steve Wampler; Bret Goodrich

doi:10.1117/12.857321

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15 July 2010 The ATST visible broadband imager: a case study for real-time image reconstruction and optimal data handling

Friedrich Wöger, Han Uitenbroek, Alexandra Tritschler, William McBride, David Elmore, Thomas Rimmele, Bruce Cowan, Steve Wampler, Bret Goodrich

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Proceedings Volume 7735, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy III; 773521 (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.857321
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2010, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

At future telescopes, adaptive optics systems will play a role beyond the correction of Earth's atmosphere. These systems are capable of delivering information that is useful for instrumentation, e.g. if reconstruction algorithms are employed to increase the spatial resolution of the scientific data. For the 4m aperture Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST), a new generation of state-of-the-art instrumentation is developed that will deliver observations of the solar surface at unsurpassed high spatial resolution. The planned Visual Broadband Imager (VBI) is one of those instruments. It will be able to record images at an extremely high rate and compute reconstructed images close to the telescope's theoretical diffraction limit using a speckle interferometry algorithm in near real-time. This algorithm has been refined to take data delivered by the adaptive optics system into account during reconstruction. The acquisition and reconstruction process requires the use of a high-speed data handling infrastructure to retrieve the necessary data from both adaptive optics system and instrument cameras. We present the current design of this infrastructure for the ATST together with a feasibility analysis of the underlying algorithms.

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Friedrich Wöger, Han Uitenbroek, Alexandra Tritschler, William McBride, David Elmore, Thomas Rimmele, Bruce Cowan, Steve Wampler, and Bret Goodrich "The ATST visible broadband imager: a case study for real-time image reconstruction and optimal data handling", Proc. SPIE 7735, Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy III, 773521 (15 July 2010); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.857321

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