Ground-to-space laser imaging: review 2001

Significant progress has been made over the last 15 years in our understanding and development of laser imaging systems for observing space objects from the ground. We review theoretical and experimental work on three techniques that have received much of the attention: imaging correlography, sheared-beam imaging and Fourier telescopy. We summarize signal-to-noise analyses that account for low-light levels and speckle noise, we discuss atmospheric turbulence compensation attributes, and we reference work on issues specific to each technique including measurement noise, effects of partial coherence and wave front reconstruction. Laboratory results are summarized and their impact on our understanding of the techniques is discussed. A brief discussion of field experiment programs is presented.

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