Abstract: In order to study the influence of atmospheric turbulence on the imaging quality of multi-aperture optical system, a theoretical analysis model was established for the Golay3 structure. The expression of point spread function (PSF) and modulation transfer function (MTF) of this structure were derived. To discuss the influence of similar circular and elongated turbulence structures on the imaging characteristics, the MTF under two turbulence conditions were calculated and compared, and the phase calculation models were constructed. The results show that when there is presence of turbulence in the optical path, the image quality of the system will decrease. As for similar circular turbulence, the smaller the intensity of turbulence is, the less the impact on the MTF is. Specially, the MTF affected by turbulence of different intensities decreases by about 0.05 at the normalized spatial frequencies of 0.16, 0.45, and 0.69. As for similar elongated turbulence, the smaller turbulent wind speed is, the less the impact on the MTF is. The MTF affected by turbulence of different wind speeds decreases by about 0.25, 0.09, and 0.05 at the spatial frequencies of 0.16, 0.42, and 0.69, respectively. The comparison of the influence of the two turbulences on the system shows that the similar elongated turbulence has a more obvious influence on the MTF.