The approach of IDEA allows an interactive choice for the compromise between gain in resolution and stability of the solution. In addition, the photometry is theoretically conserved. These two points have been illustrated on the difficult example of HST images and the error control allowed in IDEA clearly provides confidence in the quantitative analysis of the deconvolved images.
The analysis presented in this communication should lead to a better understanding of the guiding ideas of the whole regularized restoration methods that can be applied to HST images, and shows what can and cannot be done in this field whatever the particular technique implemented.
A more extensive presentation of IDEA and a study of HST images of the optical extragalactic jets in M87 and 3C66B is presented in Bouyoucef et al. (1994). A comparison between our deterministic approach and a regularized RLM and an algorithm of maximum entropy on the mean are in progress. Simulations are also used in order to determine the photometry conservation for low signal-to-noise ratios.
We would like to emphasize that IDEA has been developed independently from the spherical aberration of the HST, so that it can be used with any image, as for instance with ground-based astronomical images (see Fraix-Burnet et al. 1989).
Current developments of IDEA include the introduction of multiresolution analysis in the determination of the signal-to-noise ratio.
Acknowledgments
DFB acknowledges financial support from the Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers (INSU) for this workshop.