Summary of thesis

Chapter 2 will start with a discussion of the timescales for speckle imaging techniques such as the Lucky Exposures method. A number of numerical models for the atmosphere will be introduced, and the results of these models will be compared to previous experimental measurements. The isoplanatic angle expected for speckle imaging techniques will be calculated for the simulations and compared with data available from astronomical observatories. Simulations will then be used to determine the effect that varying the aperture size has on the quality of short exposure images which can be obtained through atmospheric seeing.

Chapter 3 will present high frame-rate observations of bright stars taken using a conventional CCD camera at the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT). The impact that the properties of the camera and telescope have on the expected performance of the Lucky Exposures method will be discussed. The data analysis method will be introduced and applied to the observational data. The atmospheric timescales measured at the NOT will be discussed, and the performance of the Lucky Exposures technique will be studied and compared to that of the shift-and-add approach.

Chapter 4 will introduce low noise L3Vision CCD detectors which have recently been developed by E2V Technologies¹. Using simple models for the operation of these devices, the theoretical performance of the detectors will be calculated. These calculations will then be compared with measurements made using real L3Vision CCDs.

Chapter 5 will present high frame-rate observations using the low noise CCDs discussed in Chapter 4. The performance of the Lucky Exposures method using these detectors will be studied in detail, and will be used to demonstrate the applicability of the Lucky Exposures technique to various astronomical programs.