IMAGE RECOVERY FROM DATA ACQUIRED WITH A CHARGE-COUPLED-DEVICE CAMERA

A model for data acquired with the use of a charge-coupled-device came ra is given and is then used for developing a new iterative method for restoring intensities of objects observed with such a camera. The mod el includes the effects of point spread, photoconversion noise, readou t noise, nonuniform flat-field response, nonuniform spectral response, and extraneous charge carriers resulting from bias, dark current, and both internal and external background radiation. An iterative algorit hm is identified that produces a sequence of estimates converging towa rd a constrained maximum-likelihood estimate of the intensity distribu tion of an imaged object. An example is given for restoring images fro m data acquired with the use of the Hubble Space Telescope.