K-band adaptive optics images of NGC 6240 in square-root colour scale. Left: K-band flux density from NIRC2 on Keck II (pixel scale 0.01″, Pollack et al. 2007; Max et al. 2007). Right: 2.2 μm continuum from SINFONI on the VLT (pixel scale 0.05″), covering approximately the same field as left. In both panels, circles indicate AGN positions (see Sect. 5), north is up and east is left, and the red bar indicates 1″ (500 pc).