NASA's Hubble Space Telescope Is Back In Business 70
Matt_dk writes "Just a couple of days after the orbiting observatory was brought back online, Hubble aimed its prime working camera, the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), at a particularly intriguing target, a pair of gravitationally interacting galaxies called Arp 147. The image demonstrated that the camera is working exactly as it was before going offline, thereby scoring a 'perfect 10 both for performance and beauty.' (Meanwhile, the slowly declining Mars Phoenix Lander has now entered safe mode, according to reader CraftyJack.)
Re:Still blurry (Score:2, Insightful)
It's unfocused because it's not a true visible-light image, and because it's assembled from three images taken over two days. Drift happens.
Citation needed. Focusing has nothing to do with light being visible. You can focus shorter wavelengths like x-rays or longer wavelengths like they do in radio astronomy. And you claim about drift (of focus?) is also odd. I don't know anything about Hubble's focusing mechanism, but I assume they either do it for every image, or they only calibrate it every month or so. It is not like they let their camera slowly drift out of focus over a few days or so. Drift in pointing should also not happen, since Hubble has one of most accurate guidance sensors up there in space.