High-resolution imaging in La Palma

Currently, in the La Palma Observatory¹ 1 This article mainly describes work being carried out with the William Herschel Telescope and the Nordic Optical Telescope in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias., there are a number of instrumentation research groups actively seeking to achieve high resolution images. The theory of imaging through a distorting medium allows various ways in which this might be done, which depend in part upon the ratio between the telescope aperture and the characteristic scale of the atmospheric turbulence. Several different approaches have been successfully demonstrated using the La Palma telescopes (mainly the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope). This article briefly reviews (a) some basic results of seeing theory, (b) seeing measurements in La Palma, (c) methods of high resolution imaging (HRI) and current work in HRI in La Palma, and (d) the future for HRI instrumentation in La Palma, (and elsewhere).