First light image obtained with GeMS and GSAOI

The engineering first light image obtained with GeMS and the Gemini South Adaptive Optics Imager GSAOI on April 19, 2011. The field of view is 85 x 85 arcseconds and the wavelength is 2.12 microns. Strehl ratio and full-width at half-maximum values for all stars are shown in the insets. This image was obtained after only 30 minutes of focusing and optimization – it is by no means representative of what is expected from the fully-commissioned system. However, it is very encouraging and already illustrates the main advantage of MCAO, which is a relatively uniform compensation across a large field of view. Note that the poorer image quality on the left edge is expected, as these stars are outside the constellation defined by the three bright stars in the right half used to control Tip-Tilt.