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There is a similar service that has been in use for several years, the hubble data archive has hosted a _huge_ database of celestial objects with reasonable clarity and terriffic options for image format and size.

Who says space isn't cool?

Drop by NASA's gallery for better shots from space.

Hubble was launched in 1990, and has an estimated 15 year life span, what will be around after it.

The Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) project is part of the NASA theme: the Astronomical Search for Origins. NGST will be the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope and may be launched as early as 2007. STScI will manage science and mission operations after launch.

The issue with the hubble space telescope was the diffractive index of the multiple lenses. Unfortunately, some over zealous engineer forgot to take into account the relative pressure differences that would exist in space. Fortunately, the pressure miscalculation was not major problem but it did create a slight bulge or abberehation of the main lense of the hubble. New lenses were constructed to account for this and then subsequently replaced. Its not always easy to get it right the first time. That is why the multiple maintenance trips to fix the Hubble. New stabilizing gyros were added later on as an afterthought. Sure the Hubble was working "okay" but not up to par as had been envisioned when the project was first started. As you can see from the crisp clean pictures the Hubble has not only been fixed but improved as well. I say we give a NASA an overdue round of applause for sticking it out to the end.


Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC

A lot more impressive is the next set of pictures.

A2218 contains images of 50+ galaxies some 10^9 lightyears away, that's what could be called the "edge" of the Universe... gravitational lensing is soooo cool!

Here are the spots you can see the big images over at the Space Telescope Science Institute.


First, the Eskimo Nebula. And Abell 2218. Both sets of images are really really pretty.

Here are the spots you can see the big images over at the Space Telescope Science Institute.


First, the Eskimo Nebula. And Abell 2218. Both sets of images are really really pretty.

Here's the URL: http://oposite.stsci.edu /pubinfo/pr/2000/07/pr-photos.html

Actually, the picture shown was in the Washington Post and the NY Times morning editions on 1/24.

You can also check STScI's Website for the latest news.

BTW, HST is not purely American. At least one of the instruments on board is German made/operated, and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore is run by a consortium that consists of NASA, The Assoc. of University Researchers in America (AURA) and the European Space Agengy (ESA). Quite of little bit of its current funding comes from non-US sources.

J.

Bigger and better (well, mostly bigger) versions of the images can be found here and here

I always love pictures from Hubble; they are always stunningly beautiful. However, they tend to look almost *too* good, as if some graphics artist had a bit to much free time while fiddling about with The GIMP ... I sometimes think the Hubble folks are trying to pull a fast one on us with these pictures :)

Bigger and better (well, mostly bigger) versions of the images can be found here and here

I always love pictures from Hubble; they are always stunningly beautiful. However, they tend to look almost *too* good, as if some graphics artist had a bit to much free time while fiddling about with The GIMP ... I sometimes think the Hubble folks are trying to pull a fast one on us with these pictures :)

There are some higher resolution images on NASA's website.

More wallpaper for me!
Seriously, even if you don't appreciate the scientific level of what NASA is doing. You can get some really awsome images from them. Check out NASA's awsome collection of images, which have aver generous copying policy.

it's likely that it was mainly just 'preventative maintenance'.. the old CPUs probably already had some damage from the length of time they'd been up there and they needed to be replaced anyway

When originally planned in 1979, the Large Space Telescope program called for return to Earth, refurbishment, and relaunch every 5 years, with on-orbit servicing every 2.5 years. Hardware lifetime and reliability requirements were based on that 2.5-year interval between servicing missions. In 1985, contamination and structural loading concerns associated with return to Earth aboard the shuttle eliminated the concept of ground return from the program. NASA decided that on-orbit servicing might be adequate to maintain HST for its 15- year design life. A three year cycle of on-orbit servicing was adopted. The two HST servicing missions in December 1993 and February 1997 were enormous successes. Future servicing missions are tentatively planned for mid-1999 and mid-2002. Contingency flights could still be added to the shuttle manifest to perform specific tasks that cannot wait for the next regularly scheduled servicing mission (and/or required tasks that were not completed on a given servicing mission).

Odd... it seems to me that every time I turn around, Hubble has broken again... are we attacking the symptoms here or the disease, so to speak?

You might want to learn a little more about the Hubble mission. When this thing was put together, several servicing missions were anticipated to replace components as the wore out, and to upgrade or swap out instruments. These missions are planned on a three year cycle.

The ORIGINAL plan was to bring the Hubble back to earth for refitting every 5 years, however the ability of shuttle crews to do in-orbit servicing has made this unnecessary.

IN FACT, the Hubble has been one of the greatest successes of the entire space program.

This mission not only includes replacement of gyroscopes (that lasted longer than originally planned), but upgrading some instruments and the main Hubble computer system.

That's a Galileo project picture. Some Hubble shots are available at http://marvel.stsci.edu/top.html.

This is a serious issue. The Space Telescope Science Institute has taken steps in the past to minimize the chance of Leonid damage to HST, orienting the aperture away from the Leonid direction. There were plans to do the same thing this year, but with the telescope in safe mode it is not possible to do the protective move. While the chances HST will be damaged are still very small, the potential loss if very high, so every bit of protection counts!

Many /.ers were asking for details on Hubble. Well I did some diggig up and came up with this Hubble history:

--Co-operative program of NASA and ESA
--Design lifetime = 15 years,with a 3 yr cycle of on-orbit service
--Launched by Discovery(STS-31),1990
--2 service missions so far,1993, and 1997
--1993 service replaced two gyroscope Electronics Control Units (ECUs)and fuse plugs for the gyroscopes

But no details on the latest failure even at stsci.edu .. can any one give more details ?

Some Links :

http://www.stsci.edu/hst/

http://amazing-space.st sci.edu/service/service-science.html


Manifest

Many /.ers were asking for details on Hubble. Well I did some diggig up and came up with this Hubble history:

--Co-operative program of NASA and ESA
--Design lifetime = 15 years,with a 3 yr cycle of on-orbit service
--Launched by Discovery(STS-31),1990
--2 service missions so far,1993, and 1997
--1993 service replaced two gyroscope Electronics Control Units (ECUs)and fuse plugs for the gyroscopes

But no details on the latest failure even at stsci.edu .. can any one give more details ?

Some Links :

http://www.stsci.edu/hst/

http://amazing-space.st sci.edu/service/service-science.html


Manifest

Here's the official web site with pictures: http://oposite.stsci.edu/pub info/pr/1999/34/index.html

In general, you can get the best scoop from the Lastest Hubble News page.

Here's the official web site with pictures: http://oposite.stsci.edu/pub info/pr/1999/34/index.html

In general, you can get the best scoop from the Lastest Hubble News page.

I found this on the nasa homepage:

Pr-Photos page

Here are some URLs to see all the great pictures that the Hubble has taken:

Main Gallery - http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pictures.html
Organized by Subject - http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/SubjectT.html
Hubble's Greatest Hits - http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/1998/18/greate st-hits-gallery.html

Enjoy them! That's why we put them up there!

Here are some URLs to see all the great pictures that the Hubble has taken:

Main Gallery - http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pictures.html
Organized by Subject - http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/SubjectT.html
Hubble's Greatest Hits - http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/1998/18/greate st-hits-gallery.html

Enjoy them! That's why we put them up there!

Here are some URLs to see all the great pictures that the Hubble has taken:

Main Gallery - http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pictures.html
Organized by Subject - http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/SubjectT.html
Hubble's Greatest Hits - http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/1998/18/greate st-hits-gallery.html

Enjoy them! That's why we put them up there!

I think was posted here on /. back in April, but I'll post it again in case you're interested. The Hubble Space Telescope took some very nice pictures of Io casting a shadow on Jupiter. This is the link to the story. Click on the picture to go to the download page.

A couple of months ago, I went to see a talk by the person in charge of the Astrophysics Data System, which contains almost all of the recent astronomical literature. It is now estimated that 75% of all journal reading in astronomy is electronic- the highest of any scientific field. The system is entirely open to the public- on an observing run I got an article at an internet cafe in San Diego (without passwords) I had forgotten to bring on the plane. Posting, however, is done through peer reviewed journals.

It is reported that this has dramatically improved access for Third World astronomers, persons at small institutuions, and backyard astronomers, who are actually significant in areas such as the discovery of new objects such as comets and supernovae and the monitoring of variable stars.

In this particular case, the journals produce an easily recognized product- peer review.

In addition, new sorts of publication are now possible. Users can actually in some cases access the entire database that went into a particular finding. This is also encouraged by funding agencies such as NASA- all NASA data now must be released to the public (preferably over the Net) after a certain amount of time. I have heard that the Hubble Space Telescope archives are now one of the leading sources of clip art.

• Some great pics include:
• Doomed Star Eta Carinae
  
• Laser in Eta Carinae (artist's concept)
  
• Exploding Star Seen In Three Dimensions
  
• Other Supernovae and Novae
  

• Some great pics include:
• Doomed Star Eta Carinae
  
• Laser in Eta Carinae (artist's concept)
  
• Exploding Star Seen In Three Dimensions
  
• Other Supernovae and Novae
  

• Some great pics include:
• Doomed Star Eta Carinae
  
• Laser in Eta Carinae (artist's concept)
  
• Exploding Star Seen In Three Dimensions
  
• Other Supernovae and Novae
  

• Some great pics include:
• Doomed Star Eta Carinae
  
• Laser in Eta Carinae (artist's concept)
  
• Exploding Star Seen In Three Dimensions
  
• Other Supernovae and Novae
  

• Some great pics include:
• Doomed Star Eta Carinae
  
• Laser in Eta Carinae (artist's concept)
  
• Exploding Star Seen In Three Dimensions
  
• Other Supernovae and Novae
  

• Some great pics include:
• Doomed Star Eta Carinae
  
• Laser in Eta Carinae (artist's concept)
  
• Exploding Star Seen In Three Dimensions
  
• Other Supernovae and Novae