Can you reach the diffraction limit without adaptive optics?

[kingsbishop]

Hello I am wondering for example if I have a super large telescope with a maximum resolving power of 0.01 arc seconds would it be possible to resolve 0.01 arc seconds of detail by stacking billions of frames to correct for seeing conditions or is that limited as well.

 

I would think if the seeing conditions are not good just stack way more frames.

 

so what I’m saying is no matter how bad the seeing conditions are would it be possible with a super large telescope with no adaptive optics for be able to reach the diffraction limit of 0.01 arc seconds by stacking like trillions of frames to get past the bad seeing conditions or is that limited as well?

[Peter Drew]

I doubt it.     🙂

[andrew s]

Have a look at this. Regards Andrew