The camera works by taking high-speed images (20 frames per second or higher) that have been partially corrected with adaptive optics. Software then combs through the images, selecting the sharpest and rejecting those smeared by the atmosphere. The clear ones are combined, producing a high-resolution image. It’s called “Lucky Imaging” because it depends on chance fluctuations in the atmosphere occasionally occurring in such a way as to provide images that the adaptive optics system can correct.
When used on the 200-inch Hale Telescope on Palomar Mountain, whose images normally have less than one-tenth the detail of those from the Hubble Space Telescope, the result is images twice as sharp—and the sharpest direct images ever taken in visible light from the ground or space. You can see the results, of the globular star cluster M13 and the Cat’s Eye Nebula (NGC 6543), here.
