Centroiding Undersampled PSFs with a Lookup Table

Abstract

We present a method of centroiding undersampled point spread functions (PSFs) that may be useful, especially when dithering is not an option. If the profile of the expected PSF is known fairly well through characterization of the telescope and detector used for observing, one can simulate the undersampled PSF at many positions on a simulated pixel grid. The true centroid positions are known since the PSFs are simulated, and so one can match up each undersampled PSF images to its true centroid location, thus forming a lookup table. One then assigns the centroid position of an observed PSF to the position associated with the PSF in the lookup table that has the smallest squared residual with respect to the observed PSF. We examine a few PSF sizes and demonstrate that the lookup table provides better centroid positions compared to a fitting algorithm when the PSFs are undersampled, even in the presence of noise.

6 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables, submitted to JATIS

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