MetaFilter posts tagged with Hubble and astronomy

cosmic spiral visuals

nickyskye — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 07:56:21 -0800

The Anatomy of Spiral Arms, shows how galaxies naturally evolve to form grand-design two-arm spirals. The Hubble Ultra Deep Field in 3D. A Visual Dictionary of Special Plane Curves. Spiral galaxies make up approximately 60% of galaxies in the local Universe. The Equiangular Spiral Grand Design Spiral Galaxy M81 l Barred Spiral Galaxies Are Latecomers to the Universe From SpiralZoom, an intriguing tidbit on spiral consciousness, from I am a Strange Loop Previously.

But that's where the fun is

dhartung — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:01:12 -0800

Atlantis. Hubble. And a big, yellow friend. Astrophotographer Thierry Legault managed to get amazing shots of Space Shuttle Atlantis approaching the Hubble Space Telescope during a transit of the sun. Don't do this at home, kids. (His site is down, so the link is through Coral.)

An Interactive Map of the Night Sky

netbros — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 21:20:34 -0800

Star Viewer ― merging Google Earth (Sky) with Hubblecast videos to learn more about what you're seeing in the night sky. Alternatively, if you have Google Earth 4.3 or above you can watch these videos in Google Earth (Sky). Virtual Tourism has its own layer in the Sky section of Google Earth that includes most of the videos on this page. The layer can be found under the 'Education Center' folder. Hubblecast also now have a layer of videos in Google Earth. Alternatively you can download this kml of the videos. The checkboxes at the top of the page will turn on a number of layers. The 'Sat' checkbox will turn on the locations of satellites orbiting the Earth. The 'Hubble' checkbox will turn on the current position of Hubble. The 'Constellations' checkbox will turn on the constellations.

Mammoth Stars

homunculus — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:19:14 -0800

WR 25 And Tr16-244: Previously Unseen Mammoth Stars Get The Hubble Treatment.

Gravitic Mayhem

Kronos_to_Earth — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:04:10 -0800

" It looks as if our Milky Way will be subsumed into its giant neighbour, the Andromeda galaxy...." A (not so) little trove of images of galactic collisions has been released to mark the 18th anniversary of the Hubble telescope's launch. Gravitic Mayhem. (via)

Cake to person ratio = infinite

WolfDaddy — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 16:18:53 -0800

To celebrate the 17^th birthday of the Hubble Space Telescope, please feast your eyes on a very detailed (Flash) picture of the Carina Nebula.

Hubble ACS, We Hardly Knew You

Brak — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 20:22:39 -0800

Hubble's ACS Has Died. Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys has apparently gone into safe mode, with little hope of return. The ACS was installed in 2002, and added amazing upgrades to Hubble's imaging capabilities. Though its lifespan was only projected at five years, scientists had hoped it would hold out longer. Though a final shuttle servicing mission is scheduled for 2008, the mission objectives plate is already too full to consider its repair. Alas, more of those beautiful pictures (as well as extended research capabilities) will have to wait until the James Webb Space Telescope is launched in 2013.

Polarises? Polarii?

40 Watt — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 08:51:40 -0800

Hubble reveals that the North Star is not one, not two, but THREE stars. Dear god, we've all been living a lie. I feel so disillusioned.

Hubble in Trouble

kyrademon — Sat, 22 Jan 2005 02:14:53 -0800

Hubble doomed again (more inside)

Hubble harvest 100 new planets

stbalbach — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 22:31:39 -0800

Hubble harvests 100 new planets during a 7-day sweep of the bulge of the Milky Way.. If confirmed it would almost double the number of known planets to about 230. "I think this work has the potential to be the most significant advance in discovering extra-solar planetary systems since the first planets were discovered in the mid-1990s."

The Best of Hubble

reverendX — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 12:02:20 -0800

The Best of Hubble Its mission will end in 2010. Four years later it will re-enter the atmosphere and burn up. Many astronomers are calling for Hubble to be refurbished and its mission extended to 2020. Here are some of it's best pictures.

My God, it's full of stars!

Irontom — Fri, 10 Oct 2003 05:41:54 -0800

Breathtaking Hubble picture of the Sombrero Galaxy (also identified as M104). The Hubble Heritage team took the original images during May and June of this year using the Advanced Camera for Surveys and multiple color filters. They then stitched 6 images together to make the final composite image.

My God, it's full of stars!

crunchland — Wed, 16 Jul 2003 08:36:20 -0800

Hubble Heritage Image Gallery. (Be sure to also check out the Index Listing for links to higher resolution versions of each of the images.)

Steven Den Beste — Sat, 17 Jun 2000 00:59:34 -0800

It's nice to know that people can still have big dreams. This is not hallucination; these guys are very serious and very practical and their credentials suggest that they know exactly what they're doing. It's the same team which is just finishing the Very Large Telescope project, which when complete will be the biggest scope in the world, and will be more sensitive and get better pictures than the Hubble. Scopes #1 and #2 are now online, #3 is in engineering shakeout, and first light for #4 is coming shortly. All four scopes will work together to generate images using interferometry.

grant — Tue, 28 Dec 1999 10:41:17 -0800

Speaking of retrotech, the latest group of space shuttle jockies just upgraded the Hubble to a rockin' Intel 486 chip, replacing the apparently inadequate 386 that previously provided the brains to the wobbly eye in the sky.