Diffraction-limited CCD imaging with faint reference stars

By selecting short exposure images taken using a CCD with negligible readout noise we obtained essentially diffraction-limited 810 nm images of faint objects using nearby reference stars brighter than at a 2.56 m telescope. The FWHM of the isoplanatic patch for the technique is found to be 50 arcseconds, providing ~20% sky coverage around suitable reference stars.