Astronomical speckle masking: image reconstruction by cross triple correlation

Speckle masking is a speckle method that is capable of reconstructing true diffraction-limited images from astronomical speckle interferograms. Image degradation caused by the atmosphere and by telescope aberrations can be overcome completely. Speckle masking is a solution of the phase problem in speckle interferometry. We propose a new, modified version of speckle masking that is based on cross triple correlation processing (or cross bispectrum processing) instead of autotriple correlation processing. The advantage of cross triple correlation processing is the fact that undesired photon bias terms in the average bispectrum of the speckle interferograms are overcome completely. We show computer simulations (astronomical magnitude of ~16(m)) that illustrate the feasibility of the method.