Pimp my scope: Revamping Hubble

Hi guys this is an old story I read in new scientist, but for some reason i was thinking about this and decided to post it. Mods sorry if it is in the wrong place. It is basically about the hubble telescope, famed for its pictures of the universe. Heres the link...

www.newscientist.com...

Anyways what got my attention is the fact that it only has a half-a-megapixel camera. Does anyone else find that amazing? I mean my camera on my phone is 3 MP and the image is rubbish at a distance of 3 Metres..... Yet the this one looked further into space than anyone thought possible!

They are now upgrading it to a 16 MP chip which is only slightly better than the latest digital cameras.. I mean I know theres propably alot better technology behind it but looking at the numbers i find it staggering!!!

The article also tells the tale of the scope, which has gone from bad to worse and it retrospect looks like a pretty poor peice of kit!!!

Thanks folks, sorry for wasting your time if this bores anyone!

First you must understand, that hubble was launched in april 1990 onboard space shuttle discovery, and back then you must realize that there were no cameras, with megapixel quality at that time(at least to the public) and multimedia mobiles were almost absent, and the technology was a big deal then, but now, technology has surpassed the hubbles and so, they are upgrading to a new camera.

And though it had only half megapixel camera, it had one advantage, being in space, it could get the clear view of the universe without atmospheric distortion, and the resolution was high though the quality was low.

Hope that helps.

Edit: A wiki link for your reference.

en.wikipedia.org...

[edit on Mon, Dec 15 2008 by peacejet]

The hubble uses mirrors and lenses that magnify what it is looking at, plus what the previous post points out, there were no mega-pixel cameras back in the early 90's, which is why the hubble used super smooth highly reflective mirrors. Remember, they had to go back up and correct for a flaw in the primary mirror's surface that threw off the entire capability of the telescope.




Cheers!!!!

reply to post by peacejet


I understand that ,what it was hard to get my head around was the fact that it took so long to upgrade. I mean i understand that budgets are tight etc......
...Its just the fact that for what, the last 9 years, millions of people have took for granted the technology they carry in their pockets when it must have been so, so, hard to get that 1 MP up there 20 years ago, and keep it up there and running all this time.

Like i said just looking at the numbers its hard to believe, and you get an idea of how far weve progressed (technologically speaking of course) in such a short space of time.

I accept your opinion that, there was a long gap between, the upgrading of the telescope, basically, it is due to the cost of running an shuttle mission for the upgrade, it costs millions of dollars and when you consider, an upgrade is made for one component in a year, and you want to upgrade the very next year, it causes, financial problems, for NASA, and hence it tends to accumulate over a few years to a single mission to upgrade everything with a series of space walks.

And over the past few years, the shuttle managers are wary of launching, a servicing mission to the hubble, because, there is no contingency plan in case of an emergency, though there is another shuttle on stand by, there is no gurantee that it too will reach orbit safely, so, they are checking everything before proceeding.

reply to post by peacejet


Yea thanks i understand. The budget part of things is realy holding NASA back as far as i can gather, and future projects might be compromised. And now i read that after next year the shuttle will be decomishoned and there is no other shuttle i nthe pipeline for at least a couple of years. That means depending on the russians, which with the current climate, dosn't look like a safe bet.