Hubble's new eyes.

[Locut0s]

Nice new pics from Hubble's refurbished "eyes".

http://hubblesite.org/newscent...hive/releases/2009/25/

Haven't had the time to look in detail and maybe this is just me but a quick glance at some of the medium rez shots seem clearly sharper than your average Hubble release. Wohoo!!

NOTE: The site is being pounded. Might take a few tries to get in.

EDIT: I've uploaded the shots to Photobucket. These are lower rez but should load better than the parent site for now

http://img.photobucket.com/alb...09-25-a-xlarge_web.jpg

The two shots on the left look particularly sharp.

 

[Newbian]

Still no shots of Martian boobies.

 

[darkxshade]

site won't load for me

 

[BassBomb]

deadlink?

EDIT: worked on refresh

 

[Nik]

There are some AMAZING pictures in the Gallery, but I can't get anything more than 500 error when trying to nab some wallpapers

 

[Locut0s]

http://img.photobucket.com/alb...09-25-a-xlarge_web.jpg

The two shots on the left look particularly sharp.

 

[destrekor]

oooo

look at the columnar nebula. Is it flicking us off? :laugh:

Looking forward to seeing the results of Hubble's sweeps in search of filamentary structure in the early Universe. Seeing that structure in the old Universe would be epic, and be so simply fitting for what we think we understand/know about the Universe's origins and the physical properties that astrophysicists theorize predict - it would be a huge astronomical breakthrough to have imagery as proof of their theories.

 

[Locut0s]

Originally posted by: destrekor
oooo

look at the columnar nebula. Is it flicking us off? :laugh:

Looking forward to seeing the results of Hubble's sweeps in search of filamentary structure in the early Universe. Seeing that structure in the old Universe would be epic, and be so simply fitting for what we think we understand/know about the Universe's origins and the physical properties that astrophysicists theorize predict - it would be a huge astronomical breakthrough to have imagery as proof of their theories.

Along that vein I think the most exiting stuff may come from NASAs Planck Surveyor probe. This will map the Cosmic Microwave Background down to an extremely fine resolution. Some of the most exciting breakthroughs of the past few decades in astronomy have come from studies of the CMB, and the probes that preceded Plank like WMAP.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Those pictures are awesome!

Paging Godlessastronomer...

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: Locut0s

Originally posted by: destrekor
oooo

look at the columnar nebula. Is it flicking us off? :laugh:

Looking forward to seeing the results of Hubble's sweeps in search of filamentary structure in the early Universe. Seeing that structure in the old Universe would be epic, and be so simply fitting for what we think we understand/know about the Universe's origins and the physical properties that astrophysicists theorize predict - it would be a huge astronomical breakthrough to have imagery as proof of their theories.

Along that vein I think the most exiting stuff may come from NASAs Planck Surveyor probe. This will map the Cosmic Microwave Background down to an extremely fine resolution. Some of the most exciting breakthroughs of the past few decades in astronomy have come from studies of the CMB, and the probes that preceded Plank like WMAP.

Agreed. The CMB is an extremely important subject of immense study in astronomy. So amazing to read what has been discovered in essentially very recent research. Right now we are just beginning to get the technology that is capable of revealing immense amounts of new details in the vastness of what we live in. And to think, we probably will still only have a small fraction of the amount of knowledge awaiting us in the Universe in the upcoming years. So much we just aren't even capable of discovering in the near term. Mind blowing to think of that too.

And funny you mention the WMAP and Planck probes, because I was thinking of something in our near future that will be orbiting near them. Both are at the Sun-Earth L2 point, and joining them sometime soon will be what is essentially Hubble's successor, the James Webb space telescope. Looking forward to the imagery that the Webb will be capable of producing sitting that far away from Earth, with its massive radiation shield it'll have facing the Sun's direction at all times.

 

[BassBomb]

Originally posted by: destrekor

Originally posted by: Locut0s

Originally posted by: destrekor
oooo

look at the columnar nebula. Is it flicking us off? :laugh:

Looking forward to seeing the results of Hubble's sweeps in search of filamentary structure in the early Universe. Seeing that structure in the old Universe would be epic, and be so simply fitting for what we think we understand/know about the Universe's origins and the physical properties that astrophysicists theorize predict - it would be a huge astronomical breakthrough to have imagery as proof of their theories.

Along that vein I think the most exiting stuff may come from NASAs Planck Surveyor probe. This will map the Cosmic Microwave Background down to an extremely fine resolution. Some of the most exciting breakthroughs of the past few decades in astronomy have come from studies of the CMB, and the probes that preceded Plank like WMAP.

Agreed. The CMB is an extremely important subject of immense study in astronomy. So amazing to read what has been discovered in essentially very recent research. Right now we are just beginning to get the technology that is capable of revealing immense amounts of new details in the vastness of what we live in. And to think, we probably will still only have a small fraction of the amount of knowledge awaiting us in the Universe in the upcoming years. So much we just aren't even capable of discovering in the near term. Mind blowing to think of that too.

And funny you mention the WMAP and Planck probes, because I was thinking of something in our near future that will be orbiting near them. Both are at the Sun-Earth L2 point, and joining them sometime soon will be what is essentially Hubble's successor, the James Webb space telescope. Looking forward to the imagery that the Webb will be capable of producing sitting that far away from Earth, with its massive radiation shield it'll have facing the Sun's direction at all times.

One of the guys who designed the laser sensing device to detect solar systems joined my school now!

 

[Locut0s]

Originally posted by: destrekor

Originally posted by: Locut0s

Originally posted by: destrekor
oooo

look at the columnar nebula. Is it flicking us off? :laugh:

Looking forward to seeing the results of Hubble's sweeps in search of filamentary structure in the early Universe. Seeing that structure in the old Universe would be epic, and be so simply fitting for what we think we understand/know about the Universe's origins and the physical properties that astrophysicists theorize predict - it would be a huge astronomical breakthrough to have imagery as proof of their theories.

Along that vein I think the most exiting stuff may come from NASAs Planck Surveyor probe. This will map the Cosmic Microwave Background down to an extremely fine resolution. Some of the most exciting breakthroughs of the past few decades in astronomy have come from studies of the CMB, and the probes that preceded Plank like WMAP.

Agreed. The CMB is an extremely important subject of immense study in astronomy. So amazing to read what has been discovered in essentially very recent research. Right now we are just beginning to get the technology that is capable of revealing immense amounts of new details in the vastness of what we live in. And to think, we probably will still only have a small fraction of the amount of knowledge awaiting us in the Universe in the upcoming years. So much we just aren't even capable of discovering in the near term. Mind blowing to think of that too.

And funny you mention the WMAP and Planck probes, because I was thinking of something in our near future that will be orbiting near them. Both are at the Sun-Earth L2 point, and joining them sometime soon will be what is essentially Hubble's successor, the James Webb space telescope. Looking forward to the imagery that the Webb will be capable of producing sitting that far away from Earth, with its massive radiation shield it'll have facing the Sun's direction at all times.

Indeed. The only worrisome thing about the JWST is that because of space constraints they had to design it to fold up like an accordion. It's sun shield is supposed to be about the size of a tennis court I believe and the 18 segmented mirror will be around 6.5m when fully deployed. All this necessitates a lot of "unfolding" something that has been a cause of headaches on previous NASA missions (things like solar panels that wont retract, etc etc.. The more moving parts the worse!) Because the telescope will orbit at the L2 point as you mention, there is no hope of properly servicing it.

 

[mb]

Awesome. Rotated the pic and made it my wallpaper at work :thumbsup:

 

[magomago]

awesome. nasa research is worth it even if it costs millions of dollars

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Love the top right image! Thanks for posting this, I hadn't seen them.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Check out this incredible gravitational lensing, wow!

 

[0roo0roo]

i remember they were scared to do the refurb because the shuttle goes to its max orbit to fix the hubble..and can't go back to the space station if sh*t happens.
but why can't they add an extra fuel tank/air tanks or whatever in the cargo bay...its probably mostly empty on such missions.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: GodlessAstronomer
Check out this incredible gravitational lensing, wow!

i love pics with significant gravitational lensing. the way it appears to "warp" other galaxies is really awesome

 

[Arcadio]

Awesome pictures. Can't wait for the new "Ultra Deep Field" picture equivalent. Reps.

 

[sao123]

lookin good hubble. lookin good.

 

[Locut0s]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
i remember they were scared to do the refurb because the shuttle goes to its max orbit to fix the hubble..and can't go back to the space station if sh*t happens.
but why can't they add an extra fuel tank/air tanks or whatever in the cargo bay...its probably mostly empty on such missions.

For one it's not empty on such missions. It holds the replacement instruments for the Hubble. Two the shuttle was not designed to be refueled in space, nor was is designed to have extra thrusters attached. Three $$$.

 

[phoenix79]

I'd love for them to re-shoot the Hobble Deep Field with the new eyes, see what they missed.

 

[Fritzo]

See that first image that looks like a bow tie? That's exactly what's going to happen to our sun in about 4 billion years.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Originally posted by: Fritzo
See that first image that looks like a bow tie? That's exactly what's going to happen to our sun in about 4 billion years.

Our Sun isn't quite big enough to go supernova. Instead it will grow into a red giant, expend what fuel is left and when the force of the fusion reaction can no longer hold back the gravitational force it will collapse into a white dwarf and spend the next few billions years cooling off quietly.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Locut0s

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
i remember they were scared to do the refurb because the shuttle goes to its max orbit to fix the hubble..and can't go back to the space station if sh*t happens.
but why can't they add an extra fuel tank/air tanks or whatever in the cargo bay...its probably mostly empty on such missions.

For one it's not empty on such missions. It holds the replacement instruments for the Hubble. Two the shuttle was not designed to be refueled in space, nor was is designed to have extra thrusters attached. Three $$$.

Surely they could just reverse the polarity to compensate for that, right?