Lucky imaging: high angular resolution imaging in the visible from the ground

Abstract

We use a Lucky Imaging system to obtain I-band images with much improved angular resolution on a 2.5 m telescope. We present results from a 10-night assessment campaign on the 2.56 m Nordic Optical Telescope and quantify the performance of our system in seeings better than 1.0''. In good seeing we have acquired near diffraction-limited images; in poorer seeing the angular resolution has been routinely improved by factors of 2.5–4. The system can use guide stars as faint as with full performance and its useful field of view is consistently larger than 40'' diameter. The technique shows promise for a number of science programmes, both galactic (e.g. binary candidates, brown dwarfs, globular cluster cores) and extragalactic (e.g. quasar host galaxies, damped Lyman-α absorbers).