  The $W$ boson angular distribution in events with high transverse momentum
jets is measured using data collected by the ATLAS experiment from
proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy $\sqrt{s}=$ 8 TeV at the
Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3
fb$^{-1}$. The focus is on the contributions to $W$ + jets processes from real
$W$ emission, which is achieved by studying events where a muon is observed
close to a high transverse momentum jet. At small angular separations, these
contributions are expected to be large. Various theoretical models of this
process are compared to the data in terms of the absolute cross-section and the
angular distributions of the muon from the leptonic $W$ decay.
