A long-standing challenge with astronomical Adaptive Optics systems is interpreting images that have been convolved with a time- and spatially-variant Point Spread Function (PSF), particularly for extragalactic observations where calibration stars may not be present in the field of view. Thus, much attention is currently being paid to independently reconstructing the PSF from auxiliary instruments such as MASS/DIMM units or deformable mirror telemetry extracted from the Adaptive Optics system itself. Jolissaint et al. present a step towards this goal in showing a clear correlation between the PSF-derived seeing and that calculated from the deformable mirror commands and Adaptive Optics telemetry only. Remarkably, this correlation is tighter than that derived from non-colocated MASS/DIMM units that only partially sample the atmospheric column above the telescope. With better than 10% precision on the PSF-derived seeing, Jolissaint et al.’s PSF reconstruction methods will be important for astronomers’ continued exploitation of Adaptive Optics systems.

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