We present here SOUL: the Single conjugated adaptive Optics Upgrade for LBT. Soul will upgrade the wavefront sensors replacing the existing CCD detector with an EMCCD camera and the rest of the system in order to enable the closed loop operations at a faster cycle rate and with higher number of slopes. Thanks to reduced noise, higher number of pixel and framerate, we expect a gain (for a given SR) around 1.5-2 magnitudes at all wavelengths in the range 7.5 <mR <18. The correction at short wavelength will be greatly improved (SR>70% in I-band and 0.6asec seeing) and the sky coverage will be multiplied by a factor 5 at all galactic latitudes. Upgrading the SCAO systems at all the 4 focal stations, SOUL will provide these benefits in 2017 to the LBTI interferometer and in 2018 to the 2 LUCI NIR spectro-imagers. In the same year the SOUL correction will be exploited also by the new generation of LBT instruments: V-SHARK, SHARK-NIR and iLocater.

We review astronomical results in the visible (lambda<1 mu m) with adaptive optics. Other than a brief period in the early 1990s, there has been little (<1 paper/yr) night-time astronomical science published with AO in the visible from 2000-2013 (outside of the solar or Space Surveillance Astronomy communities where visible AO is the norm, but not the topic of this invited review). However, since mid-2013 there has been a rapid increase visible AO with over 50 refereed science papers published in just similar to 2.5 years (visible AO is experiencing a rapid growth rate very similar to that of NIR AO science from 1997-2000; Close 2000). Currently the most productive small (D < 2 m) visible light AO telescope is the UV-LGS Robo-AO system (Baranec, et al. 2016) on the robotic Palomar D=1.5 m telescope (currently relocated to the Kitt Peak 1.8m; Salama et al. 2016). Robo-AO uniquely offers the ability to target >15 objects/hr, which has enabled large (>3000 discrete targets) companion star surveys and has resulted in 23 refereed science publications. The most productive large telescope visible AO system is the D=6.5m Magellan telescope AO system (MagAO). MagAO is an advanced Adaptive Secondary Mirror (ASM) AO system at the Magellan 6.5m in Chile (Morzinski et al. 2016). This ASM secondary has 585 actuators with < 1 msec response times (0.7 ms typically). MagAO utilizes a 1 kHz pyramid wavefront sensor. The relatively small actuator pitch (similar to 22 cm/subap) allows moderate Strehls to be obtained in the visible (0.63-1.05 microns). Long exposures (60s) achieve <30mas resolutions, 30% Strehls at 0.62 microns (r') with the VisAO camera in 0.5" seeing with bright R <= 9 mag stars. These capabilities have led to over 22 MagAO refereed science publications in the visible. The largest (D=8m) telescope to achieve regular visible AO science is SPHERE/ZIMPOL. ZIMPOL is a polarimeter fed by the similar to 1.2 kHz SPHERE ExAO system (Fusco et al. 2016). ZIMPOL's ability to differentiate scattered polarized light from starlight allows the sensitive detection of circumstellar disks, stellar surfaces, and envelopes of evolved AGB stars. Here we review the key steps to having good performance in the visible and review the exciting new AO visible science opportunities and science results in the fields of: exoplanet detection; circumstellar and protoplanetary disks; young stars; AGB stars; emission line jets; and stellar surfaces. The recent rapid increase in the scientific publications and power of visible AO is due to the maturity of the next-generation of AO systems and our new ability probe circumstellar regions with very high (10-30 mas) spatial resolutions that would otherwise require much larger (> 10m) diameter telescopes in the infrared.

MagAO is the adaptive optics instrument at the Magellan Clay telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile. MagAO has a 585-actuator adaptive secondary mirror and 1000-Hz pyramid wavefront sensor, operating on natural guide stars from R-magnitudes of -1 to 15. MagAO has been in on-sky operation for 166 nights since installation in 2012. MagAO's unique capabilities are simultaneous imaging in the visible and infrared with VisAO and Clio, excellent performance at an excellent site, and a lean operations model. Science results from MagAO include the first ground-based CCD image of an exoplanet, demonstration of the first accreting protoplanets, discovery of a new wide-orbit exoplanet, and the first empirical bolometric luminosity of an exoplanet. We describe the status, report the AO performance, and summarize the science results. New developments reported here include color corrections on red guide stars for the wavefront sensor; a new field stop stage to facilitate VisAO imaging of extended sources; and eyepiece observing at the visible-light diffraction limit of a 6.5-m telescope. We also discuss a recent hose failure that led to a glycol coolant leak, and the recovery of the adaptive secondary mirror (ASM) after this recent (Feb. 2016) incident.