Solar adaptive optics

Abstract Ground-based observations of solar small-scale structure is severely degraded by thermal fluctuations in the Earth's atmosphere. Adaptive optics systems can compensate in real time the aberrations caused by seeing, permitting observations close to the diffraction limit of the telescope. There are adaptive optical systems with varying degrees of complexity, ranging from simple fast guiders for high-contrast, confined targets to sophisticated systems that undo high degree wavefront deformations. This paper reviews the main principles of adaptive optics, addresses issues peculiar to solar adaptive systems, and presents current developments in this area.