HUBBLE-SPACE-TELESCOPE FAINT OBJECT CAMERA CALCULATED POINT-SPREAD FUNCTIONS

A set of observed noisy Hubble Space Telescope Faint Object Camera poi nt-spread functions is used to recover the combined Hubble and Faint O bject Camera wave-front error. The low-spatial-frequency wave-front er ror is parameterized in terms of a set of 32 annular Zernike polynomia ls. The midlevel and higher spatial frequencies are parameterized in t erms of set of 891 polar-Fourier polynomials. The parameterized wave-f ront error is used to generate accurate calculated point-spread functi ons, both pre- and post-COSTAR (corrective optics space telescope axia l replacement), suitable for image restoration at arbitrary wavelength s. We describe the phase-retrieval-based recovery process and the phas e parameterization. Resultant calculated precorrection and postcorrect ion point-spread functions are shown along with an estimate of both pr e- and post-COSTAR spherical aberration. (C) 1997 Optical Society of A merica.