ABSTRACT
The twinkling of stars or distorted images across a paved road on a hot summer day is caused by turbulence in the atmosphere. Distortions like these can be corrected by adaptive optics. The result of more than three decades of technology development, adaptive optics systems are being used at observatories around the world. This Handbook is a guide to the implementation of adaptive optics, a collection of analysis tools for system design and development, and an introduction to up-to-date developments in the multidisciplinary adaptive optics field.
