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Space NASA

Hubble Releases First Post-Upgrade Images 129

Posted by timothy from the new-prescription-much-nicer dept.
Hynee writes "As tweeted, NASA has released 10 new images, all from the new WFC3 instrument and others, including the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph. Images include NGC 6302, Carina Nebula, Stephan's Quintet, Markarian 817, Abell 370, and a few others. Great looking stuff, the WFC3 has twice the resolution of the WF/PC2, on the CCD at least, if memory serves correctly. Eta Carina is a fascinating object, and there are at least two releases in this 'Early Release Observations' set." Here is a video about the new images at Hubblesite.org, and a full HubbleSite.org release page with 56 images.
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Hubble Releases First Post-Upgrade Images More

Hubble Releases First Post-Upgrade Images

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  • Colors in photographs (Score:5, Interesting)

    by religious freak ( 1005821 ) on Wednesday September 09, 2009 @05:48PM (#29372269)
    I bet we've got a really smart person out there that knows the answer for this, for sure. I asked my professor and they really danced around and didn't give a straight answer (it was a community college).

    What about these brilliant colors we always see in the photographs? Are they touched up (I've read and NASA insists, "no, they're not")? Are they extrapolations based on the inferred composition of the gases in a nebula, for example? Or is it honest to goodness, if we were parked in a space ship a few million miles away, exactly what our eyes would register?

    • Re:Colors in photographs (Score:5, Informative)

      by eldavojohn ( 898314 ) * <eldavojohn@noSpAM.gmail.com> on Wednesday September 09, 2009 @05:53PM (#29372343) Journal

      I bet we've got a really smart person out there that knows the answer for this, for sure. I asked my professor and they really danced around and didn't give a straight answer (it was a community college). What about these brilliant colors we always see in the photographs? Are they touched up (I've read and NASA insists, "no, they're not")? Are they extrapolations based on the inferred composition of the gases in a nebula, for example? Or is it honest to goodness, if we were parked in a space ship a few million miles away, exactly what our eyes would register?

      Your answer is on the FAQ in one of the linked sites here [hubblesite.org]:

      There are no "natural color" cameras aboard the Hubble and never have been. The optical cameras on board have all been digital CCD cameras, which take images as grayscale pixels.

      Sometimes the color is as natural as possible. However, the color given to the images is not just "artistic embellishment." The images are, indeed, downloaded as black and white, and color is added for a number of different reasons -- for example, to show the dispersion detail of chemical elements and highlight features so subdued that the human eye cannot see them.

      For more information, read The Meaning of Color [hubblesite.org] on HubbleSite, which explains in detail how color is added to images.

      • very interesting... Great question by the poster, and a great answer by you... YOU GET A COOKIE!

        I'm gonna go read about this now...

      • It makes sense, the cameras in the Hubble Telescope capture more then just the colour spectrum, they also capture Infrared and Gamma rays, which are invisible to our eyes so the colours help express exactly whats going on in that cluster of stars.

        What I don't get is why we don't have more than one Camera up there, one with Natural Colour, and one with the greyscale wider range cameras.

        • Re:Colors in photographs (Score:5, Informative)

          by camperdave ( 969942 ) on Wednesday September 09, 2009 @06:50PM (#29372949) Journal
          Because all digital cameras are greyscale. It is simply a matter of which filters are placed in front of which pixels. So your question becomes "why don't we have filters to mimic what the eye naturally sees?", and the answer to that is that (A) they can get better science out of the filters they have, and (B) If they use a particular set of filters they can mathematically generate what the eye sees, so there's really no need. The Hubble isn't a coin op sightseeing telescope, it is a precision scientific instrument.

          • Re:Colors in photographs (Score:5, Informative)

            by Dachannien ( 617929 ) on Wednesday September 09, 2009 @06:53PM (#29372987)

            Indeed, and for those folks wondering how the digital camera works that they have at home, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter [wikipedia.org].

            • And do you know how much Nikon wants if you don't want the Bayer filter on your D80?
              Last time I asked I was referred to their scientific department... (IOW too damn expensive).

              Related: does anyone know if this filter is removable (and by extension who offers that service?)
              -nB

              • Related: does anyone know if this filter is removable (and by extension who offers that service?)

                There should be, there are services that convert digital cameras [photo.net] to infrared [photocrati.com]

                Falcon

                • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

                  by bay43270 ( 267213 )

                  That's different. An infrared camera has the ir filter removed and an additional filter added to block non-ir light (see the video here http://www.lifepixel.com/ [lifepixel.com]). The old filter blocked ir light across the entire sensor. It's essentially like any other filter you would put on your lens. A Bayer filter is completely different. It filters each individual cell of the sensor with one of three colors. Each cell knows which color was used to filter it. It would have to be implemented on the sensor itself.

              • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

                by Anonymous Coward

                Bayer filters are patterned during the lithographic process. The monochrome version is a completely different part, one made in much smaller volume. Generally the only users of good quality monochrome CCD/CMOS sensors are scientific or machine vision users, much lower volume markets.

                Since you want a monochrome detector, you probably know about the problems with interpolating colors with a Bayer filter camera. The Foveon chip http://www.foveon.com/ was an attempt to get around this by having the R, G, B,

              • Re:Colors in photographs (Score:4, Informative)

                by E-Lad ( 1262 ) on Thursday September 10, 2009 @03:03AM (#29375643)

                As already mentioned, the Bayer filter is part of the CMOS sensor itself. It's not a separate part that's tacked on near the end of the manufacturing process.

                There is, however, a separate filter in front of the sensor on pretty much every DSLR. This is a IR cut-off filter. Naked CMOS sensors are very sensitive into the IR spectrum. This high-pass IR filter prevents deep red and IR from overwhelming the resulting image, producing a balanced red against the green and blue end of the visible spectrum.

                There are several cases where one would want to modify their DSLR and have this filter removed. The primary users of this method are astrophotographers who wish to use a much cheaper DSLR on their telescopes vs. a very expensive [sbig.com] purpose-made camera. There are a few small companies such as Hutech [hutech.com] which can perform this service under warranty.

                Why?

                Nebulas and stars in particular emit light (human-visible and not) in a variety of specific wavelengths. These particular wavelengths are produced by ionized elements in the star or nebula complex. In your run-of-the-mill nebula, copious amounts of Hydrogen-alpha and doubly-ionized Oxygen tend to produce much of the light. H-alpha's emission line is deep in to the red spectrum, which the IR cut filter on DSLRs dutifully blocks from reaching the sensor. Removing this filter lets the DSLR capture additional light and detail from the nebula... stuff you wouldn't get with a stock DSLR.

                If you take a stock DSLR and try to image (for example) the Horsehead Nebula [wikipedia.org], you're not going to get far because the thing emits almost entirely in the H-alpha band. Put on a camera that doesn't cut the deep red, and you'll get a result that's closer to what you'd expect.

                There is a trade-off to doing this mod, of course... in that you're effectively turning your DSLR into a IR camera, and if you want it to be close to normal again, you'll need to put a IR filter on your lens.

          • On a related side note, the CCD on Hubble is the equivalent to a ONE megapixel camera. I'm not knocking Hubble (as some do with comparisons to the digicam in their pocket) - quite the opposite: I'm constantly amazed how much the space industry in general manages to get such good science out of technology that is quite often considered "obsolete" by the time it launches.

            Believe me, I'm a grad student, and I know the power of getting the most out of obsolete equipment!

        • Long story short, color cameras aren't conducive to science, just shiny and "oohhh, ahhhh". It's just one more thing to maintain that won't help anyone.

      • First, thanks for the link to the faq [hubblesite.org].

        Now onto the quote you provide,"There are no "natural color" cameras aboard the Hubble and never have been. The optical cameras on board have all been digital CCD cameras, which take images as grayscale pixels." My question is why is NASA using a sensor with greyscale pixels? Both CCD and CMOS sensors use color filter arrays [wikipedia.org] to capture color information. There was also the technology Silicon Film [steves-digicams.com] created. Using CMOS tech they created a sensor that could capture the

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Bill of Death ( 777643 ) *
          Because, when using a color filter array, you throw away 2/3 of your light. Plus it's inflexible.

          • Because, when using a color filter array, you throw away 2/3 of your light. Plus it's inflexible.

            So use Silicon Film's tech which could have created 3 colors at each pixel using almost all of the light. This is because, as marine scientists, some film photographers, and scuba divers know, different colour frequencies penetrate to different depths. So the sensor developed by Silicon Film captured the 3 primary colours, at least I think the primary colours, at different depths. Through processing the colou

        • Re:Colors in photographs (Score:4, Informative)

          by node 3 ( 115640 ) on Thursday September 10, 2009 @12:05AM (#29375015)

          The filters you are talking about are affixed to the CCD/CMOS. The filters on Hubble are interchangeable (more similar to lens filters on SLR and similar cameras). The cameras on Hubble have dozens of filters to choose from.

          The other benefit is that on a standard 3 color CCD, you end up combining four pixels to create one full color pixel. With Hubble, you get to use all four pixels independently because they all share the same filter.

          • If you haven't already see retiredtwice reply, above yours. As I replied to him, or her, I hadn't thought of light frequencies not visible to humans.

            Falcon

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by retiredtwice ( 1128097 )

          The problem is if you put filters as part of the light sensitive array, that would be all they can be used for. The Hubble probably has Red Green and Blue filters as part of its kit as well as a bunch of others that look at specific spectral lines for study. If you combine RGB filtered pictures in the right proportions, you get what we consider to be "natural" color. But it also has narrow band filters for other capabilities like Hydrogen Alpha (in the red band) and Sulfur along with many others. T

          • Thanks for the explanation. Of the explanations I've been given yours is the best. I hadn't even thought of the light frequencies not visible to humans.

            Falcon

        • Perhaps you know something I don't that makes the Silicon Film tech unusable, but I don't see why NASA couldn't use color filters.

          As has been explained, they could, but they have more important things to do, and the images would not be as useful for science, which was, and remains, the purpose of Hubble. They could have added RGB filters in front of the greyscale sensor (which is basically what you're proposing here), but that would cost launch weight, which means losing other filters, so they went for the more useful ones. The sensors you have linked to are basically a bunch of filters, some built in to the sensor.

          Many of these nebul

          • As I've said in replies to other's reply I hadn't about frequencies that are not visible by humans.

            Falcon

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by TapeCutter ( 624760 ) *
          Filters on space telescopes are normally tuned to gather different emission spectra of certain atoms and molecules, the colour pictures are often combinations that show (say) red for hydrogen, green for oxygen and blue for nitrogen. Sometimes these spectra are visable to a human eye, sometimes there not. Astronomers do not "touch up" the colours but they often select an asthetically pleasing view of the data.

          • Like retiredtwice's reply above yours you bring up frequencies not visible by humans and I hadn't thought of that.

            Falcon

      • Sure the Hubble, being an instrument first and foremost, uses filters and digital photography to analyze structures in space, and see things humans can't see.

        But fundamentally the Hubble is still a near-visible light telescope of the reflector type, fundamentally not much different [wikipedia.org] than many common hobbyist scopes [wikipedia.org]. Just bigger, much more precisely made, and in outer fucking space. Oh and with a ton of instruments, filters, etc attached.

        What I want is to get those out of the way, attach an eyepiece, and pu

    • Re:Colors in photographs (Score:5, Informative)

      by A beautiful mind ( 821714 ) on Wednesday September 09, 2009 @05:55PM (#29372377)
      Red shift and the properties of visible light travelling means that you indeed see "false colour" images, but there are no "real" colours to speak of on the other hand. If you would park your space ship a few million miles then the picture would look entirely different, not just in the colours.

      False colour in this case is about visualizing non-visible frequencies of light.

      • Re:Colors in photographs (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Wednesday September 09, 2009 @08:25PM (#29373699) Journal

        If you would park your space ship a few million miles then the picture would look entirely different, not just in the colours.

        I'll qualify this. Most nebula's would be rather dim to the human eye if viewed unaided even if up close. Our eyes are not sensitive enough to detect colors at low light levels, and thus most nebula's, or at least most parts of nebula's would look gray to us. However, if the light was concentrated via a telescope or special lens system, then we could see the colors. Whether these colors match what science-oriented filters of Hubble uses is another matter.

        Humans have a crappy color detection arrangment anyhow. Red and green are too close together spectrum-wise, and we cannot see into the near infrared and ultraviolet ranges. Most non-mammalian vertebrates have a better spacing of colors, including having 4 color cones instead of 3. Mammals got a raw deal, probably because existing mammals all evolved from small nocturnal creatures who relied on sound and smell more. In fact, most mammals only have 2 color cones. Primates later evolved a 3rd, probably to identify ripe fruit.
               

        • Speaking of eyesight, I've got to bring up the Mantis Shrimp.

          They've got two eyes mounted on stalks, each one capable of moving independently, possessing IR and UV hyperspectral vision, trinocular depth perception and the ability to differentiate between varying planes of polarisation.

          Pretty impressive. They're more famous for their attack method though; extremely powerful punches using armoured claws. They've been known to break out of aquariums by shattering the glass, and in the wild they can kil

    • Re:Colors in photographs (Score:4, Informative)

      by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Wednesday September 09, 2009 @05:58PM (#29372405) Journal
      Depends on the image, I think. Many(possibly most or all) are false color. With output from instruments beyond the puny human visual spectrum, you don't even have much of a choice. You take one or more wavelengths and on some mixture of arbitrary and aesthetic grounds, assign them to visible colors, with the intensity of the visible color at a given pixel set by the intensity of the other wavelength for that given pixel.

      • You take one or more wavelengths and on some mixture of arbitrary and aesthetic grounds, assign them to visible colors.

        Or rather, assign them to visible wavelengths. The colors aren't in the light; the brain is doing the somewhat arbitrary assignment of colors to wavelengths. And the color intensities assigned don't match wavelength intensities, with green being stronger than the corresponding band, for example.

        • True, I was pretty sloppy there.

          Since I'm here, it's probably worth mentioning that even if you have a visible-light instrument, false color might still be used. There is no particular assurance that a primate visual system, evolved to solve hunter-gathering problems on the savannas of 100,000 years ago, will pick out relevant detail in "true" color; while false color might make it leap out, if the appropriate false colors are used.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      That depends on the image, the camera, and the technology.
      If the image isn't true-color, your eyes will see something different. False-color images have non-visible frequencies mapped onto the visible spectrum, and might not be showing anything in the visible spectrum at all. True-color will be pretty close, but read on.
      Then there's the camera. Cameras don't reproduce the visible spectrum exactly. Some are more sensitive in the near-infrared, some can show you near-UV. In both cases, the image will tend to

      • The 'camera' being the HST, you can rule out focus, depth of field, and lens effects. It's a reflecting telescope, and everything is at infinity.

    • Re:Colors in photographs (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Rothron the Wise ( 171030 ) on Wednesday September 09, 2009 @06:01PM (#29372459)
      Sometimes they are false colors, often they are not. However, a telescope is vastly larger than your eyes. They gather a lot more light, even considering how much the image has been magnified.

      I've watched the ring nebula through a 11 inch only to see it in black and white, yet fixed a camera to the very same telescope and gotten color pictures. There simply isn't enough light for my eyes to detect the color. Perhaps with an even larger telescope I could have.

      So no, the spectacular nebula might not even be visible to the human eye in your parked space ship, but you certainly could take a long exposure with a very sensitive camera and get awesome colors.

      The Orion nebula is large/close enough to be seen without any telescope, but too faint to see without.

    • Re:Colors in photographs (Score:5, Informative)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Wednesday September 09, 2009 @06:08PM (#29372521) Homepage
      There's an example of the Carina Nebula showing both "false colour" and something a closer to the "real colour" you would see from your space ship at The Register [theregister.co.uk]. It's also one of the images from the 56 at the Hubble site linked in the story, but let's try and spread the Slashdotting Love around...

      Also, your "few million miles" just might be a little off and in some cases a few million light years or more would be more realistic. :) Some of these dust clouds and so on are *BIG*. If the Tarantula Nebula [wikipedia.org], for instance, was located as close as the Orion Nebula [wikipedia.org] it would cover about a quarter of the sky.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by msbmsb ( 871828 )
        Those comparative shots of the Carina Nebula are showing the difference between "visible light" and infrared, not colors. The visible light image has false color.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Atario ( 673917 )

        If the Tarantula Nebula, for instance, was located as close as the Orion Nebula it would cover about a quarter of the sky.

        I can't begin to tell you how awesome that would look. It would be terrible for astronomy, of course -- blocking the view -- but still.

    • Since Mercury is at least 46 million miles from our Sun, I'm pretty sure if your were parked "a few million miles away" from most of these stars, your eyes would be registering extreme pain from the heat, and you would really care about the color. Of course, most of the pictures are composed of millions of stars that are themselves at least thousands of light years apart, so I'm not sure how you would get within "a few million miles" of the subject of the picture.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rm999 ( 775449 )

      The answer is some images are close to true, while others are totally different from what our eyes would see. Every Hubble photograph we see is actually a composite of 3 gray-scale images with different filters attached. In general, they color the image with the highest wavelength filter red, the lowest blue, and the middle green.

      This page (http://www.hubblesite.org/gallery/behind_the_pictures/meaning_of_color/eso.php) gives a pretty good illustration. You can click on several images and see a map from wher

    • I asked my professor and they really danced around and didn't give a straight answer (it was a community college).

      Oh, the merits of living in a society where the word 'professor' is used for a person who holds a chair at a proper university, and indicates a senior content expert. A title awarded on the basis of academic excellence---I've known two people who were paid at the level of professors but did not receive their chair until the university decided to honour them in that way.

      Doesn't stop them dancing around and giving bendy answers, of course, but it helps identify some content experts. Like 'engineer' or 'do

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by blueg3 ( 192743 )

      Touching up isn't the same as a false-color image. They're not photographs, so they're not really the colors you'd see.

      But then, all film and digital cameras put a lot of engineering into producing images so that they look as if you were seeing the object. It's not a natural thing for light-measurement tools to do. As this is a scientific instrument, placing those kind of filters on the cameras up in space would be foolish; it's only a potential source of error.

    • The other responders explained where the colors come from, but they skipped over the other half of your question...

      The images are what you would see if your eyes were sensitive to the same wavelengths as Hubble and your brain mapped those sensations to the same mental colors. They are not embellished for an extra splash of pink here, a different shade of blue there, or clearing out some poorly placed stars for better contrast. They are simply the measured wavelengths mapped to computer-renderable colors.

  • Would like to see the improvement (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 09, 2009 @05:50PM (#29372299)

    If anyone finds a link to side-by-side images from the old and new cameras, please post it!

  • Most of us will never travel to those stars.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Peter Cooper ( 660482 ) on Wednesday September 09, 2009 @05:57PM (#29372393) Homepage Journal

    The BBC has a news article up on this story [bbc.co.uk] with a weird quote:

    "Most of us humans will never travel to some of the exotic places physically that we see in these images," reflected Nasa's chief scientist, Ed Weiler

    Most of us won't?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 )
      To be fair, Hubble has imaged some of the planets in the solar system including Mars. I guess Ed Weiler is a glass half-full kind of guy and thinks we're actually going to get someone on Mars before the funds get cut and it gets faked at Area 51 again. :)

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by martas ( 1439879 )
        logically speaking, his statement means that all of us will travel to at least one of the places in those images, which is clearly not true, since while I was writing this post, a "child died in Africa"...
        • That's not what his statement means by any logic. What he said could be misleading since it may imply that there is someone who is going to at least one of those places. By no logic could you deduce what you have deduced.
        • In order for his statement to be false, 50%+1 of humans currently alive would have to travel to >= 1 location photographed by the Hubble. In logical form it basically goes: At least 50%+1 of the population of earth will not travel to at least 1 location seen in these images. Take a class in formal logic sometime and spend some time translating natural language into symbolic logic. It's eye opening.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Kjella ( 173770 )

            In order for his statement to be false, 50%+1 of humans currently alive (...) Take a class in formal logic sometime and spend some time translating natural language into symbolic logic. It's eye opening.

            Since we're already involved in logical asshattery, "currently alive" was entirely your own interpretation. "Most humans" may just as easily refer to all humans past, present and future which would be a pretty good conjecture.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Atario ( 673917 )

      Clearly, he knows something we don't.

    • "Most of us humans will never travel to some of the exotic places physically that we see in these images," reflected Nasa's chief scientist, Ed Weiler

      Most of us won't?

      Perhaps they would if they rode in a Firefly.

      Falcon

      • Perhaps they would if they rode in a Firefly.

        Actually, the Firefly class is an in-system transport and doesn't have FTL capability. IIRC the various places the crew lands in the TV series are mostly moons around gas giants. (Happy to be corrected).

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by M1FCJ ( 586251 )
      You should upgrade your spaceship and get a proper Infinity Drive. The voyage is a bit unsettling but the destinations are truly great! I'd truly recommend the further side of the Quentulus Quazgar Mountains.
  • Has the "upgraded" Hubble taken any images of objects it previously imaged with its old sensors? I would be interested in a comparison.

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    Should have used d

  • Imagine if a porno company got hold of that camera... It would be *so* easy to get funding!

  • "First Post Upgrade Images" (Score:5, Funny)

    by IGnatius T Foobar ( 4328 ) on Wednesday September 09, 2009 @06:43PM (#29372883) Homepage Journal
    Wow! Only on Slashdot do we see "First Post" getting upgraded! :)

  • I suddenly feel... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anachragnome ( 1008495 ) on Wednesday September 09, 2009 @06:45PM (#29372893)

    I suddenly feel very, very small...

    I'd like to say images like this put things in perspective for me, but in fact they do the exact opposite.

  • I know the early days of Hubble many sciencey people were arguing that Hubble was a waste of resources. Do people still think this? Does anyone remember those days?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by rm999 ( 775449 )

      I agree with you, but keep in mind that it hasn't been cheap. A lot of liberterian types probably don't like the Hubble's cost.

      The Hubble has cost at least 5-7 billion dollars now (http://www.spacetelescope.org/about/faq.html). It has directly led to 4,000+ papers (source: Wikipedia), and a lot of new discoveries. It is hard to quantify the value of the Hubble, but one way of putting it is the mean cost per academic paper is about 1.5 million dollars. Of course this is a terrible way of putting it, because

      • I've always wondered why we've spent so much money servicing the darn thing.

        Granted, the ability to capture & repair a satellite in orbit is outright remarkable, although the economics of the space shuttle appear to make this an extremely unattractive proposition. Why aren't there several "Hubbles" orbiting above us? Like you've said... the science returns on the investment have been remarkable (arguably the best for any project NASA's ever done)

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by ColdWetDog ( 752185 )

          I've always wondered why we've spent so much money servicing the darn thing.

          Because we have to learn 'space mechanics' somewhere. Consider this - if we are to move the manned space program along to do any one of a number of impressive sounding things (Moon / Mars / Asteroids) we have to have an ability to do 'routine' repairs. Not everything is going to go according to plan.

          As we've found from the Hubble missions and the ISS servicing missions, this is pretty hard and requires enormous planning and tr

          • I think the real reason we spend so much on servicing the Hubble is that we just don't have a cheaper operational spacecraft. I think the Shuttle is overkill for this type of mission. It's like taking a tractor-trailer to do your weekly grocery shopping. Something closer in design to the Apollo command module could get an expert to the Hubble to do maintenance much cheaper.

            I don't believe we can make spaceflight cheaper and more reliable by relying on the shuttle. We need to take the lessons we have lea

            • Not sure if NASA's current planned "Something closer in design to the Apollo command module", the Orion module, would be good at servicing the shuttle. The space shuttle has a very effective robot arm, and air lock and changing areas to get space suited. Orion has a minimal docking capability, and doesn't look like its been designed for space walks. I doubt it will be long before space enthusiasts start looking back to the golden days of the shuttle. And clamour for a new winged reusable space craft.

              ---

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by M1FCJ ( 586251 )
          It costs around a billion to build a Hubble. It costs around a billion to spend a space shuttle to do maintenance.
          Which one would you fund if you were NASA, a programme which has no involvement in your money-grabbing manned space programme or something that makes the monkeys feel worthy?

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by American Terrorist ( 1494195 )
        /rant on
        A lot of libertarian types' arguments aren't worth listening to. They are mostly half-educated hacks whose entire philosophy is based on one value, "freedom", don't realize that most people have many competing values, and can't appreciate nuance just like most extremists.
        /rant off

        Hubble's discoveries have had a major impact on the way I view the universe. Its old images are still my screen-saver, I can't wait to update them. If any NASA/astronomer types are reading this, I want to give you

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by M1FCJ ( 586251 )
      Hubble was a waste of space (hahah, I kill me) until its first upgrade which fixed the optics. Even now, there are earth-bound satellites producing images almost as better as Hubble pictures. For the cost of the Hubble, at least tens, if not hundreds of observatory projects could have been funded, with massive mirrors and technological advances. Hubble became the great scientific work horse it is now after its first round of upgrades and the latest upgrades are truly impressive. On the other hand, it is hol

  • God giving us a hint? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Wednesday September 09, 2009 @08:12PM (#29373583) Journal

    Eta Carina is a fascinating object

    Indeed! It contains one of my favorite nebula's:

    http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap030630.html [nasa.gov]

    (Older Hubble file photo)
       

    • Which Eta Carina while you can, it a late stage unstable supergiant and bound to go supernova (maybe hyper-nova) in the next hundred thousand years or so. Lucky its axis isn't pointing at earth, as that might get nasty in the hyper-nova case, where much of the energy gets beams from the poles.

      ---

      Astronomy Feed [feeddistiller.com] @ Feed Distiller [feeddistiller.com]

  • fsck twitter (Score:2, Informative)

    by tedgyz ( 515156 ) *

    I don't give a flying fsck that NASA tweeted! Just give me the goddam info!

    C'mon geeks - do you want to share ranks with Chris Coumo [twitter.com] of Good Morning America [go.com]?

    I am the anti-twitter.

  • "Here is a video about the new images at Hubblesite.org [CC] [GC], and a full HubbleSite.org release page with 56 images [CC] [GC]."

    Anyone else want to see video of it working? As in what the lens sees as it is being repositioned? I am sure 99% of it is fuz, but after playing with my telescope this weekend I think it would be fun to see what it sees, fuzz and all.

  • Comparison Photos (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Here ya go

    http://www.universetoday.com/2009/09/09/just-how-good-is-the-new-hubble-lets-compare/

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