2008AJ....136.1523S

We have employed laser guide star (LGS) adaptive optics (AO) on the Keck II telescope to obtain near-infrared (NIR) images in the Extended Groth Strip deep galaxy survey field. This is a continuation of our Center for Adaptive Optics Treasury Survey program of targeting 0.5 < z < 1 galaxies where existing images with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) are already in hand. Our AO field has already been imaged by the Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Near Infrared Camera and Multiobject Spectrograph (NICMOS). Our AO images at 2.2 µm (K') are comparable in depth to those from the HST, have Strehl ratios up to 0.4, and full width at half-maximum resolutions superior to that from NICMOS. By sampling the field with the LGS at different positions, we obtain better quality AO images than with an immovable natural guide star. As examples of the power of adding LGS AO to HST data, we study the optical to NIR colors and color gradients of the bulge and disk of two galaxies in the field with z = 0.7.