Bandwidth smearing explained

Bandwidth smearing is a chromatic aberration of the reconstructed image of a celestial body observed by an astronomical interferometer that occurs because of the frequency bandwidth. In Fourier terms, the different frequencies of the bandwidth probe different spatial frequencies which results in a reconstruct map containing elongated radial features.

It is overcome by going to higher spectral resolutions or, in radioastronomy, by using different centres of phase for image reconstruction.

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