High resolution solar speckle imaging with the extended Knox-Thompson algorithm

We present an implementation of the extended Knox-Thompson (EKT) speckle reconstruction algorithm dedicated to solar observations. EKT speckle imaging yields nearly diffraction-limited images from bursts of short exposure solar observations under a wide range of seeing conditions. Our implementation supports field dependent amplitude calibration to permit analyzing data obtained with a partially compensating adaptive optics systems. The principles of the method and some technical details of our implementation are discussed. We have performed various tests using simulated data of representative solar scenes. The simulations include the effects of seeing and noise with the exception of anisoplanatism. The expected photometric error of a reconstructed image amounts to a few percent of the mean intensity under seeing conditions ranging from poor to excellent. We also present sample reconstructions of real data and discuss issues arising from anisoplanatism.