  The analysis of astronomical images is a non-trivial task. The D3PO algorithm
addresses the inference problem of denoising, deconvolving, and decomposing
photon observations. Its primary goal is the simultaneous but individual
reconstruction of the diffuse and point-like photon flux given a single photon
count image, where the fluxes are superimposed. In order to discriminate
between these morphologically different signal components, a probabilistic
algorithm is derived in the language of information field theory based on a
hierarchical Bayesian parameter model. The signal inference exploits prior
information on the spatial correlation structure of the diffuse component and
the brightness distribution of the spatially uncorrelated point-like sources. A
maximum a posteriori solution and a solution minimizing the Gibbs free energy
of the inference problem using variational Bayesian methods are discussed.
Since the derivation of the solution is not dependent on the underlying
position space, the implementation of the D3PO algorithm uses the NIFTY package
to ensure applicability to various spatial grids and at any resolution. The
fidelity of the algorithm is validated by the analysis of simulated data,
including a realistic high energy photon count image showing a 32 x 32 arcmin^2
observation with a spatial resolution of 0.1 arcmin. In all tests the D3PO
algorithm successfully denoised, deconvolved, and decomposed the data into a
diffuse and a point-like signal estimate for the respective photon flux
components.
