Patent ID: 7245742

Claim:
A surveillance apparatus for providing surveillance of people or a vehicle in a ground to ground situation, a ground to hillside situation, a mountaintop to ground situation, a building to ground situation, a building to building situation, an airborne to ground situation, or combinations of the situations and improving resolution or contrast or resolution and contrast in surveillance images received over a horizontal path or a slant path having atmospheric aberrations, comprising: a surveillance camera positioned to have a camera view across the ground situation, the ground to hillside situation, the mountaintop to ground situation, the building to ground situation, the building to building situation, the airborne to ground situation, or combinations of the situations wherein the camera view is either parallel to the ground or at a slant angle to the ground either up or down relative to the horizontal for capturing the surveillance images received over the horizontal path or the slant path having atmospheric aberrations, optics for focusing or enlarging or focusing and enlarging the surveillance images, said optics operatively connected to said camera and directed along the horizontal path or slant path, and a computer system operatively connected to said camera for producing short exposures of the surveillance images and for speckle processing said short exposures and improving resolution or contrast or resolution and contrast in the surveillance images received over the horizontal path or the slant path having atmospheric aberrations.