Yes, apodizing screens do work to sharpen the image. HOWEVER, they reduce the size of the aperture by a significant amount (the perfect apodizing screen starts at the middle and gradually increases it's density as you approach the edge to 100% at the edge. This means that you actually have a much smaller effective aperture and you lose resolution due to the smaller aperture. You win some and you lose some. The end effect is that you basically balance out the errors in each direction and you get nowhere. This was the big thing 10 years ago or so and the final decision on the effort was that it really wasn't worth the effort. To my knowledge, none of the people heavily involved in the experimentation is using apodizing screens at this time and you don't see them at any of the star parties/conventions as an added comment.

• Re: Ouranos Telescope Interface. - Keith_Lohmeyer/">Keith Lohmeyer - August 27, 1999 - 11:58 UTC