Hubble Appreciation Thread

[beam me up scottie]

Since I first saw the black and white pictures taken by Hubble in 1990, I have been in awe of the incredible power and beauty of the universe captured in its images.
I posted one of my favorite images from Hubble below in the hopes that others will do the same.

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is a space-based telescope that was launched in 1990 by the space shuttle. From its position 380 miles above the Earth’s surface, the HST has expanded our understanding of star birth, star death, and galaxy evolution, and has helped move black holes from theory to fact. It has recorded over 100,000 images in the past eight years.

The telescope’s instruments are the astronomer’s eyes to the universe. Its instruments include the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS), Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), and Fine Guidance Sensors (FGS).

When first launched, the HST’s primary mirror was out of shape on the edges by 1/50 of a human hair. This very small defect made it difficult to focus faint objects being viewed by the Hubble. Because the HST is in low Earth orbit, it could be serviced by a shuttle. The defect was corrected in one such servicing mission. It will continue to be serviced about every three years until it is retrieved in 2010. Perhaps you will be able to visit the Hubble Space Telescope at the National Air and Space Museum someday.
http://hubblesite.org/

On the right is part of the first image taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope's (HST) Wide Field Planetary Camera. It is shown with a ground-based picture from a Las Campanas, Chile, observatory of the same region of the sky. The Las Campanas picture was taken with a 100-inch telescope and its typical of high-quality pictures obtained from the ground. All objects seen are stars within the Milky Way galaxy.

Burst of Star Formation Drives Bubble in Galaxy’s Core