Polychromatic effects on incoherent imaging through anisoplanatic turbulence

We present a numerical simulation of incoherent imaging of an extended object through distributed-volume atmospheric turbulence. As such, we can observe and quantify the effects of anisoplanitismin in the image plane of our optical system. Along with simulating the effects of anisoplantism, we aim to quantify the effects of polychromatic blurring in the image plane of our optical system. This outcome allows us to simulate the real-world scenario of a spectral filter with an effective bandpass. Using the spectral-slicing method, we define a square-response filter and discretely sample it at multiple wavelengths to simulate the polycromatic nature of our optical system. In turn, we find that the effects of polychromatic blurring are minimal, given modern-day narrowband filters. Thus, the use of monochromatic light is sufficient in simulating incoherent imaging; however, it is important to note that our results suggest that there may be a minor sampling error that would need to be addressed if the approach used here was to be expanded to an extremely broadband case.