Digital reconstruction of point sources imaged by a zone plate camera

Zone plate cameras are used for high sensitivity imaging of X- and gamma-ray sources. The image thus obtained requires decoding and numerical techniques are devised for this purpose. The response function and the signal-to-noise ratio for a single point source have been evaluated for zone plates with varying numbers of zones. Autocorrelation is the best of the methods examined, and the results are in good aggreement with those obtained using Monte Carlo techniques. The autocorrelation method can give a gain of 50% in signal-to-noise for a single point source over the maximum obtainable with optical decoding. Criteria for the choice of number of zones are discussed.