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Lucky imaging (or lucky exposures) is a means of producing high resolution images in the face of atmospheric distortion. Numerous images are taken at relatively short exposures and then the best are selected and combined. The best are presumed to have been taken when the atmosphere was producing least distortion by chance, i.e., luck. The technique has been used by amateur astronomers since the mid-twentieth century and is used by professional astronomers as well. With the technique, diffraction limited observation can be approached and it can be considered an alternative to adaptive optics but it can be combined with adaptive optics, which can in some cases yields a level of resolution in less time. It requires a degree of stability of the source, i.e., that successive images remain unchanged other than seeing issues, a requirement affected by the necessary exposure time to produce each image.