Early results from AO assisted visible observations with the new high-contrast imager SHARK-VIS at the Large Binocular Telescope

SHARK-VIS, the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) optical high-contrast imager, had its first light in October 2023. Thanks to the high performance of the refurbished LBT adaptive optics system SOUL, SHARK-VIS extends the capabilities of one arm of the LBT telescope down to 400nm, delivering images with a spatial resolution in the order of 20 mas, which in the infrared bands will be achieved only by future Extremely Large Telescopes. This document reports the instrument's preliminary performance on-sky, which confirms that SHARK-VIS is ready for its main science applications. Specifically, we will show that the instrument is able to provide views of minor bodies and satellites in the Solar System with an unprecedented level of detail and that it achieves contrasts of the order 1e-4 with its H-alpha filter (1nm FWHM) at 150 mas separation from a mag G14 star, even under non-optimal weather conditions.