The Possibility of Compensating Astronomical Seeing

1953/10/01 by H. W. Babcock, Horace W. Babcock · 716 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Adaptive optics and wavefront sensing #Aperture (computer memory) #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Atmosphere (unit) #Detector #History and Developments in Astronomy #Meteorology #Optics #Physics #Scintillation #Stars #Telescope

paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/126606

published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 65, 229 (Institute of Physics)

openalex publication_date 1953/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

The severe limitations imposed upon nearly all astronomical observations by "seeing"-the effects resulting from passage of light rays through the turbulent atmosphere of the earth-are familiar to every observer.With a small instrument the effect may appear largely as a continual shifting and scintillation of the image of a star, but with a large telescope poor seeing usually manifests itself mainly as an enlargement and blurring of the image.The reason for this difference becomes apparent when one makes a knife-edge test with a large telescope on a bright star.The turbulent elements of the atmosphere appear as shifting

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