A spatial regularization method preserving local photometry for Richardson-Lucy restoration

In this article we give a simple method of spatial regularization deriving from the Richardson-Lucy (RL) algorithm in order to overcome the problem of noise amplification during the image reconstruction process. It is very important in astronomy to regularize images while controlling their photometric behavior. We propose a new reconstruction method preserving both the global and local image photometric properties. A mathematical presentation is described here. This method was applied to an image of Titan-a satellite of Saturn-acquired in near infrared with the adaptive optics system ADONIS installed at the ESO 3.6 m telescope in La Silla (Chile). The local photometric results here are compared using contours normalized at the same intensity levels.