Comments on: It’s baaaaaaaack!

By: Well, That Was Fast! | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine

Well, That Was Fast! | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:14:24 +0000

[...] week saw the first public release of data from the refurbished Hubble Space Telescope, and its new imaging camera (Wide Field Camera 3, or [...]

By: judith weingarten

judith weingarten — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:59:58 +0000

Thanks so much for the heads up. This is a non-physical-scientist's take on what you wrote: Zenobia Gets To Know Hubble

By: Brian137

Brian137 — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 01:21:24 +0000

In post #14, Shankar asks if the colors are natural or “rendered.” I have been hoping someone would address this question. Have the reds and blues been “enhanced,” or are they just the way Captain Kirk sees them out there? Are those beautiful stars wearing makeup, are they just back from the hairdresser’s, or do they really look that way?

By: Whither NASA: the Moon? Mars? Science? | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 05:09:34 +0000

[...] the other hand, has been instrumental in producing amazing science, epitomized by the launching and servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope. Given the immense cost of the shuttle program, however, the science [...]

By: Shankar

Shankar — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:21:40 +0000

In the photo above, are the colors natural or have they been rendered?

By: TheRadicalModerate

TheRadicalModerate — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:56:29 +0000

Are the “blue stragglers” still pop I stars, or is there some mechanism where pop II stars have appeared in the cluster?

By: Hubble lives! « Living Questions

Hubble lives! « Living Questions — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:14:05 +0000

[...] A couple of folks closer to the source weigh in here and here. [...]

By: Julianne

Julianne — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 16:20:40 +0000

John W — All the dots are stars in the globular cluster (which orbits our galaxy). The brightest red ones are asymptotic giant branch stars and red giant stars. The brightest blue ones are (probably) “blue stragglers” or blue horizontal branch stars. All of these are phases of evolution that many stars eventually go through. Here, it’s a group of stars that all have pretty much the same age. However, different stellar masses evolve at different rates, and sometimes go through different phases (i.e. more mass = faster rate of fuel consumption = faster evolution and more mass for doing fancy nucleosynthesis = different evolution).

Brian — I’m not sure if an Ultra Mega Hubble Deep Field is the right thing to do. The optical imaging camera was repaired to what it was when the UDF was done (i.e., you’d just get back to where you were). The capabilities at UV and NIR wavelengths, however, are much improved, so maybe better to go back and broaden the wavelength coverage of the original UDF.

By: John Wendt

John Wendt — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:50:29 +0000

Awesome; thanks, Julianne.

Looks like the red and blue dots are stars in our galaxy, white dots are distant galaxies?

By: Peter Coles

Peter Coles — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:33:43 +0000

Superimpose that on a tree and it would make a nice Christmas card…

By: Lurking Astronomer

Lurking Astronomer — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 05:28:40 +0000

Awesome Omega Cen image… photometry on the .jpg would probably be better than almost all available

Hmm….

By: Brian Mingus

Brian Mingus — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 05:14:35 +0000

I can’t wait for a refresh of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Anyone know if that is in the works? Hubble Über Deep Field seems like an appropriate name.

By: Julianne

Julianne — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:05:06 +0000

lawson — NASA wanted to make a big splash with their gorgeous press release. Having the first images be quick and dirty ones that individual groups slapped together would be less likely to have given the full impression of how good the system is now.

Anon-Snowboarder — Well, most of the “before” pictures would have been pictures of nothing, because there were no real working spectrographs (and now there’s two), no wide area optical imager (just WFPC2, which was a workhorse, but small and inefficient compared to the two imagers that are working now), and a teeny-tiny inefficient NIR imager (NICMOS). So, “before” pictures would still be pretty, and would have the same high resolution, but they would be of smaller area fields, and would have required much longer exposure times to reach the same science goals.

By: Anonymous Snowboarder

Anonymous Snowboarder — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 02:49:51 +0000

I checked a number of images posted on the Rubble homepage earlier today. Have they added any before/after shots? I’m sure its obvious for all the specialists but would be a good way to illustrate to the public how much things can improve over a short period of time (since the last fix).

By: lawson

lawson — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:41:21 +0000

Why would you have to sign a non-disclosure agreement?

By: Brian137

Brian137 — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:20:44 +0000

Gorgeous! Thanks, Julianne.

By: ARJ

ARJ — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:07:23 +0000

WOWZA!!

By: 9 September 09 PM « blueollie

9 September 09 PM « blueollie — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:01:48 +0000

[...] telescope: back on line…and doing its job! Surf there to see a cool [...]