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We report on the first results to our knowledge obtained with adaptable multiaperture imaging through turbulence on a horizontal atmospheric path. We show that the resolution can be improved by adaptively matching the size of the subaperture to the characteristic size of the turbulence. Further improvement is achieved by the deconvolution of a number of subimages registered simultaneously through multiple subapertures. Different implementations of multiaperture geometry, including pupil multiplication, pupil image sampling, and a plenoptic telescope, are considered. Resolution improvement has been demonstrated on a ∼550 m horizontal turbulent path, using a combination of aperture sampling, speckle image processing, and, optionally, frame selection., (© 2011 Optical Society of America)

Low-cost adaptive optics is applied in lasers, scientific instrumentation, ultrafast sciences, and ophthalmology. These applications demand that the deformable mirrors used be simple, inexpensive, reliable, and efficient. We report a novel type of ultralow-cost deformable mirror with thermal actuators. The device has a response time of ~5 s , an actuator stroke of ~6mum , and temporal stability of ~lambda/10 rms in the visible range and can be used for correction of rather large aberrations with slow-changing amplitude.