Deconvolution by maximum entropy, as illustrated by application to the jet of M87

An improved method is presented of deconvolving blurred and noisy data, appropriate for pictures of the sky taken with astronomical telescopes. The maximum entropy criterion gives the smoothest possible structure of the sky consistent with the observed image. The improvement lies in the consistency test; the noise is forced to have its correct statistical distribution. This provides greater resolution and more accurate fitting. The method is illustrated by deconvolving an optical photograph of the nuclear regions of M87. (author)