Multiframe Astronomical Image Registration Based on Block Homography Estimation

Abstract

Due to the influence of atmospheric turbulence, a time-variate video of an observed object by using the astronomical telescope drifts randomly with the passing of time. Thereafter, a series of images is obtained snapshotting from the video. In this paper, a method is proposed to improve the quality of astronomical images only through multiframe image registration and superimposition for the first time. In order to overcome the influence of anisoplanatism, a specific image registration algorithm based on multiple local homography transformations is proposed. Superimposing registered images can achieve an image with high definition. As a result, signal-to-noise ratio, contrast-to-noise ratio, and definition are improved significantly.