Welcome to my webpage

I am a post-doc at DIBRIS (ex-DISI), University of Genova, where I work under the supervision of prof. Mario Bertero and prof. Patrizia Boccacci. My research activity belongs to the inverse problems field, and it concerns the deconvolution of astronomical images. In particular, I focus on the data acquired by the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) and LINC-NIRVANA (LN), its Fizeau interferometer camera.

You can find more information about our group and our research here.

Research interests

  • Astronomical image reconstruction. Richardson-Lucy algorithm and its multiple image version: OSEM. Acceleration and regularization of OSEM.
  • Multi-scale image decomposition. The Steerable Pyramid Transform and its application to the denoising of astronomical images.
  • The Software Packages AIRY and AIRY-LN. Tools for the simulation and the reconstruction of astronomical images, with applications to the Large Binocular Telescope and LINC-NIRVANA, its Fizeau interferometer imager.

Research Activity

I got my Master Degree in Physics from the University of Genova, supervised by prof. P. Boccacci and prof. A. Brunengo, with a thesis entitled ''Metodi di elaborazioni di immagini: progetto LBT''. I considered the problem of extracting a Point Spread Function (PSF) from a star present in the field of view of the image. My work is included in a module (PEX) of the Software Package AIRY, since the version 4.0.

After my graduation, I continued the work on PSF extraction focusing on the problem of the extrapolation of the PSF out of the extraction domain by means of a Lorentzian function [La Camera et al. 2007]. Moreover, I also studied the complete model of the noise that includes both Gaussian and Poisson noise. The conclusion is that for background dominated images the Gaussian noise can be approximated by a suitable Poisson noise [Benvenuto et al. 2008].

During my PhD I continued my work on astronomical image deconvolution. I participated in a specific simulation study in collaboration with INAF astronomers. I worked on the simulation and the reconstruction of distant galaxies in order to verify the accuracy of the results achievable by using the LINC-NIRVANA imager [Ciliegi et al. 2008]. I also improved the PSF extrapolation by means of a Moffat function [Ciliegi et al. 2010].

I also studied the Steerable Pyramid transform, a multi-scale approach to the denoising of images. In particular, I applied it to the denoising of astronomical images in order to "clean" the data before the application of the PSF extraction procedure [Bertero et al. 2011].

I am co-author of the Software Packages AIRY and AIRY-LN [La Camera et al. 2012(a), Carbillet et al. 2010(a), Carbillet et al. 2010(b), Desiderà et al. 2008]. AIRY is a tool for the simulation and the reconstruction of astronomical images, it is freely distributed and, at the present day, the version 6.0 is available online.
AIRY-LN is the LN-dedicated version and it is distributed to the LN consortium researchers only. At present day, the version 1.3 of AIRY-LN is available.