Performing tomographic reconstructions from a satellite looking toward Earth. Part 1: implementation and limitations.

For imaging instruments that are in space looking toward the Earth, there are a variety of nuisance signals that can get in the way of performing certain imaging tasks, such as reflections from clouds, reflections from the ground, and emissions from the OH-airglow layer. A method for separating these signals is to perform tomographic reconstructions from the collected data. A lingering struggle for this method is altitude-axis resolution and different methods for helping with it are discussed. An implementation of the maximum likelihood expectation maximization algorithm is given and analyzed.