%0 Journal Article %A Kornienko, Y. V. %A Skuratovskiy, Sergey I. %D 2012 %I Begell House %K inhomogeneous medium, refraction index inhomogeneities, phase problem, phase accumulation %N 3 %P 223-232 %R 10.1615/RadioPhysicsRadioAstronomy.v3.i3.50 %T MECHANISM OF DEGRADATION OF IMAGES OBSERVED THROUGH A MEDIUM WITH RANDOM INHOMOGENEITIES %U https://www.dl.begellhouse.com/journals/6fd1549c0e2c05da,4e9409a35a49a927,3a0a3e2a78b7497f.html %V 3 %X Causes of degrading object images observed through a medium with random inhomogeneities of the refraction index are analyzed. The mechanism of information degradation due to phase distortions is considered in detail. The existing ways of reaching the diffraction limit of instrument resolution are briefly reviewed and causes of reducing their efficiency in the case of standard deviations of phase distortions equal to 2π or greater are analyzed. A technique is suggested to remove the limit. %8 2012-08-13