Why is deconvolution used in telescopes, CT scans and seismographs? Can you explain to someone with no mathematical background why is deconvolution used in telescopes, CT scans and seismographs? How do you explain that the same technique can be used for different things. The distortions in telescopes, CT scans and seismographs are all different from each other.
As long as the "distortion" is caused by a linear system, its effect can be modeled by a convolution operation with some "filter". The filter is different for different applications and perhaps even different scenarios and is usually measured / estimated before the deconvolution operation.

The deconvolution itself attempts to recover the original signal given the measured output which is the convolution of a signal with a filter (essentially the signal was filtered and we use the result to try and recover the original signal before filtering).