Lucky Imaging
with AstraLux Norte and AstraLux Sur

AstraLux Norte is the Lucky Imager of the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain
AstraLux Sur is the Visiting Lucky Imager Instrument on La Silla Observatory in Chile
Click here to switch to the AstraLux Sur webpages

A comparison of conven-tional imaging and lucky imaging of the core of the globular cluster M15. Data obtained in July 2006 at the Calar Alto 2.2m tele-scope. Read more ...
What is Lucky Imaging? Image distortions due to atmospheric seeing are not static. The degree of image degradation varies over a wide range on timescales of seconds. Exploit this fact and:
(1) Acquire a large number of short-exposure images, typically 10.000 * 30ms (needs high-speed, high-sensitivity, low-noise detector).
(2) Measure the image quality of each single frame (needs a reference object).
(3) Select the best few percent of all images, typically 1-10%.
(4) Combine these high-quality images to get the final improved result.

Pioneering work by Craig Mackay, Bob Tubbs et al. at the Nordic Optical Telescope (LuckyCam).

Since July 2008 a twin instrument, AstraLux Sur, is available as visitor instrument on the 3.5m New Technology Telescope (NTT) on La Silla Observatory in Chile.

MPIA Astralux (Norte) team: Wolfgang Brandner, Thomas Henning, Stefan Hippler, Felix Hormuth, Karl Wagner.

Camera specifications
Fore-optics
and filter wheel
Filter data, QE data,
Atmosphere template data
Wikipedia article about Lucky Imaging
Publications, user's guide, log sheets
Performance
Links
last update: 19 April 2018
editor: Stefan Hippler