Hα maps and velocity fields of VVDS220596913 (z ~ 1.27) obtained with and without adaptive optics. From top to bottom: Hα flux map, velocity field and velocity dispersion map (corrected for spectral resolution). From left to right: AO-assisted SINFONI observation (pixel size = 0.05′′), simulated observation with AO and a pixel size of 0.10′′, simulated seeing-limited observation with a pixel size of 0.10′′, seeing-limited SINFONI observation (pixel size = 0.125′′). The circle in the lower left corner of each image represents the effective FWHM spatial resolution (a two pixel Gaussian smoothing has been applied to each cube before map extraction). The color scale of the Hα flux maps is arbitrary. A threshold of S/N per pixel  ≥ 3 is used for the display of velocity maps. North is up and East is left.