High-Efficiency Lucky Imaging

Abstract

Lucky Imaging is now an established observing procedure that delivers near diffraction-limited images in the visible on ground-based telescopes up to ~2.5 m in diameter. Combined with low order adaptive optics it can deliver resolution several times better than that of the Hubble Space Telescope. Many images are taken at high speed as atmospheric turbulent effects appear static on these short timescales. The sharpest images are selected, shifted and added to give a much higher resolution than is normally possible in ground-based long exposure time observations. The method is relatively inefficient as a significant fraction of the frames are discarded because of their relatively poor quality. This paper shows that a new Lucky Imaging processing method involving selection in Fourier space can substantially improve the selection percentages. The results show that high resolution images with a large isoplanatic patch size may be obtained routinely both with conventional Lucky Imaging and with the new Lucky Fourier method. Other methods of improving the sensitivity of the method to faint reference stars are also described.

MNRAS - Accepted 2013 March 19. Received 2013 March 7; in original form 2013 January 8, MNRAS 2013: stt507v1-stt507

References in corpus (2)

• Lucky Imaging: High Angular Resolution Imaging in the Visible from the Ground
• Lucky imaging: beyond binary stars

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Microlensing Searches for Exoplanets
• Image Quality in High-resolution and High-cadence Solar Imaging
• Visible near-diffraction limited lucky imaging with full-sky laser assisted adaptive optics
• On the evolution of a sub-C class flare: a showcase for the capabilities of the revamped Catania Solar Telescope
• The Thresher: Lucky Imaging without the Waste
• A Novel Hybrid Algorithm for Lucky Imaging
• GravityCam: Wide-Field High-Resolution High-Cadence Imaging Surveys in the Visible from the Ground
• AOLI: Near-diffraction limited imaging in the visible on large ground-based telescopes
• High-Resolution Imaging in the Visible on Large Ground-Based Telescopes