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I've been listening to a few podcasts lately where they've been explaining how the adaptive optics work on the Keck Observatory. They say that they are getting better resolution than hubble in the IR wavelengths, but their AO system doesn't yet work on visible light and that's where Hubble trumps them.
Apparently the next generation AO system will work in visible light as well, which is fortunate because it will hopefully be ready around the time when Hubble will stop working.
This "lucky" term they use - I've heard them talk about this before, when basically all they're doing is Registax-style processing - that is, picking the sharpest images and throwing away the most distorted. Amateurs have been doing it for years and it's only in the last 2 years that professionals are starting to use the same techniques.
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