Lucky imaging and aperture synthesis with low-redundancy apertures

Lucky imaging, used with some success in astronomical and even horizontal-path imaging, relies on fleeting conditions of the atmosphere that allow momentary improvements in image quality, at least in portions of an image. Aperture synthesis allows a larger aperture and, thus, a higher-resolution imaging system to be synthesized through the superposition of image spatial-frequency components gathered by cooperative
combinations of smaller subapertures. Acombination of lucky imaging and aperture synthesis strengthens both methods for obtaining improved images through the turbulent atmosphere.We realize the lucky imaging condition appropriate for aperture synthesis imaging for a pair of rectangular subapertures and demonstrate that this condition occurs when the signal energy associated with bandpass spatial-frequency components achieves its maximum value.