The resolution obtained in the observations, about 20 milliarcseconds, easily corresponds to separating a pair of automobile headlights in Providence, Rhode Island, from San Francisco, California. To achieve this level of definition, Gemini obtained a large number of very quick "snapshots" of Pluto and Charon. The researchers then reconstructed them into a single image after subtracting the blurring effects and ever-changing speckled artifacts caused by turbulence in the atmosphere and other optical aberrations. With enough snapshots (each image was exposed for only 60 milliseconds or about 1/20 of a second) only the light from the actual objects remains constant, and the artifacts reveal their transient nature, eventually canceling each other out.