Ghosts in the Mirror

Professor Johnson explained atmospheric effects as decreasing the image resolution by increasing the full-width half maximum of the intensity plot. When we had first covered n-slit diffraction I would have thought that simply making the telescope lens bigger would counter this effect since resolution is proportional to lens diameter (resolution = \[Lambda]/diameter so a larger diameter means better resolution). 

Here's a simple explanation of how deformable mirrors work: In response to John's post Happy Halloween where he identified molecular cloud ghosts, here's a toast to making ghosts out of deformable mirrors.

Back to the problem of resolution - Naturally it is very expensive to make larger telescopes. The white board explanation showed each incoming wavefront as a line (assuming a very distance source,/k /circular wavefronts become lines), and atmospheric perturbation introduce phase differences so you had a bump readout instead of the flat line.

Another question I had but forgot to ask - how large are the disturbances in the wavefront and how much does deforming mirrors adjust this?

Another cool video about deformable mirrors and the private industry:

I liked this one more (barring the lack of ghosts) because the music was more motivating. I felt like scientists were superheroes.