Image restoration methods for the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT)

A complete exploitation of the imaging properties of the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) will require a generalization of the restoration methods which apply to the case of a single image. Several different observations must be combined to obtain a high-resolution representation of a given target. The purpose of this paper is to extend to this problem some of the most used restoration methods, including linear methods such as Tikhonov regularization as well as iterative regularization methods providing positive solution. The proposed methods are implemented and tested on simulated LBT images' of diffuse and point-like objects. The results are discussed both from the point of view of the accuracy and from that of the computational efficiency, because LBT images may contain, in principle, up to 10(8) pixels.