Abstract
Image centroid measurements are the most used information in astronomical adaptive optics systems for the wavefront reconstruction. However, because in real observations these measurements are affected by scintillations, the reconstructed wavefront always contains some errors related to the scintillation effect. In this paper we investigate the influence of scintillations on the image centroid by means of computer simulations. The simulations have been performed for the case of weak-turbulence conditions for both varying and constant C[n]2 profile. The comparison of the results shows that there is no strong dependence on the form of the C[n]2 profile: rather the magnitude of the effect is determined mainly by two integral parameters of a C[n]2 profile: the integral turbulence strength (Fried parameter) and the scintillation level (intensity variance).
