Amateurs celebrate the venerable space telescope’s 30th anniversary with a look at some of its most mesmerizing images.

Globular cluster
Globular star clusters are my favorite objects to look at through a telescope. On a trip to Chile last year to experience my fifth total solar eclipse, I made a point to seek out this cluster, 47 Tucanae, in the night sky because I’d heard so much about it. I wanted to measure it up against Omega Centauri, which I’d previously seen only from the Florida Keys during the Winter Star Party, and compare the view with my own eyes to this one from Hubble. I wasn’t disappointed.
NASA

For 30 years, the Hubble Space Telescope has been a powerhouse of discovery for professional astronomers. But behind the scenes are some amateur astronomers, too. We are among the hundreds of dedicated scientists, engineers, managers, and others who have kept the venerable spacecraft operating and its cosmic revelations flowing over the past three decades. And to share Hubble’s sharp vision from space, we sometimes rely upon insights gained from stargazing on Earth.

I was in junior high when Hubble launched aboard Space Shuttle Discovery. Back then, the many nights I spent stargazing during family camping trips in northern Michigan had just begun to develop into a deeper curiosity about the universe. It wasn’t long before I decided that I wanted to be an astronomer. The summer before heading to MIT for college, I was awestruck by Hubble’s images of the giant, black scars Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 left on Jupiter. Never would I have imagined that, decades later, Hubble would still be wowing me and that I’d be at NASA, telling the ongoing story of the telescope and its discoveries.

Jupiter
In July 1994, about six weeks before heading off to college to study astronomy, I was awed by Hubble for the very first time when I saw its shots of the Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts on Jupiter. The black scars created by the comet fragments were far bigger than I’d imagined they’d be — some were the size of Earth. Who knew we could watch the universe change in real time?
NASA

But I never became a professional astronomer. Midway through college, I loved astronomy more than ever, but I feared that I had neither the stamina nor the finances to spend several more years obtaining a PhD. Instead, I paired my passion for astronomy with a knack for writing and became a science writer. I’ve been with the Hubble team since 2006, involved in crafting articles, videos, social media posts, handouts, books, media campaigns, public events, and anything else NASA’s Hubble outreach team creates to share the telescope’s accomplishments with the world.

I’ve sustained my bond with the universe as an amateur astronomer, though — shivering in remote fields while counting streaks cast by the latest meteor shower, camping out at star parties around the country to marvel at the dark skies, and hunting down every Messier object with my trusty Dobsonian. I’ve held positions in local astronomy clubs, and I share views of the night sky with everyone I can at outreach events.

My experience as an amateur occasionally comes in handy at work, too. When Hubble is releasing a new image of a celestial object that’s visible in the night sky, for instance, the communication team frequently turns to me to find out if and when amateurs could spot the object, what equipment is needed to see it, and what it might look like from a suburban backyard, so we can share that information with the public. And when NASA provided telescopes for Astronomy Night at the White House in 2009 and again in 2015, my colleagues selected me to attend because I could operate a telescope and locate interesting targets, even in the light-polluted skies of Washington, DC.

Supernova Remnant 0509
This red bubble, SNR 0509-67.5, looks serene. But it’s the result of gas being shocked by a violent supernova explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud dwarf galaxy.
NASA

Specs

The Hubble Space Telescope is 13.2 meters (43.5 ft) long, the length of a large school bus. Its primary mirror is 2.4 m in diameter and weighs 828 kg (1,825 lb).

I’ve been fortunate to find other amateur astronomers on the Hubble team — kindred spirits who know the night sky and appreciate what some of the celestial objects in Hubble’s remarkable images look like through ordinary telescopes on the ground. One of them is Kevin Hartnett, who oversees the mission’s science operations conducted by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). Kevin was hooked by astronomy as a kid, too — in his case by a friend who was grinding a 6-inch telescope mirror. The two of them joined the Junior Astronomical Society of Harrisburg, staying out all night in sleeping bags to soak in the dark Pennsylvania skies.

HD11479
I always feel taken aback when I look at this image of the Red Rectangle protoplanetary nebula, produced by the dying star HD 44179. I am so used to seeing curves in nebulae that it’s striking to see such straight lines and angles.
NASA

Repairs

Hubble launched in April 1990 but with a primary mirror aberration that blurred images. It wasn’t until after the first servicing mission in 1993 that astronomers could capture the pristine images the space telescope is famous for. Astronauts completed five Hubble servicing missions between 1993 and 2009.

Kevin caught the astrophotography bug early and continued to develop his skills while studying physics and astronomy at the University of Delaware, completing a project to image Comet Kohoutek. Like me, Kevin opted out of the PhD route, instead working in private industry after graduation. He made his way to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center as a mission operations contractor before being offered a job as a NASA employee the day before Hubble’s launch in 1990. He joined the Hubble team in 1997, right about the time I was shifting my aspirations from becoming a professional astronomer to writing about astronomy.

Kevin spends many hours teaching others about the heavens, hosting star parties, and photographing the sky. Since purchasing a DSLR camera five years ago, he has contracted astrophotography fever. At Goddard, Kevin’s images of the night sky hang alongside Hubble’s grand views on conference room and cafeteria walls. We’ve even compared Kevin’s photos of some celestial objects to those targeted by Hubble so we could assess the view from his Maryland backyard relative to Hubble’s view from orbit, 540 km (335 miles) up.

Pillars of Creation Hubble
Hubble’s portrait of the “Pillars of Creation” in the Eagle Nebula, taken with its Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 back in 1995, is arguably its most famous image ever. In 2014, Hubble revisited these towers of star formation with its Wide Field Camera 3 to capture a wider, more detailed view in both visible (left) and infrared (right), revealing stars inside and beyond the nebula’s clouds of gas and dust. We often use this powerful side-by-side demonstration to help explain why so many of us are excited for Hubble to work alongside the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope. It’s also a perfect target for comparisons with backyard astronomers’ images.
NASA
Pillars of Creation by Kevin Hartnett
The Pillars of Creation by Kevin using an 8-inch SCT with a Canon EOS 600D camera and total exposure of 0.7 hour.
Kevin Hartnett

Kevin and I are both active members of the Goddard Astronomy Club, a small but enthusiastic group of amateur astronomers who work or once worked for NASA in a variety of roles — from engineers and scientists (including a couple of professional astronomers) to programmers, IT specialists, managers, and outreach professionals. Kevin and I have even recruited other members to help us out with projects at times. For example, we’ve put our amateur hats on to assemble online collections of Hubble images taken of objects from the Messier and Caldwell catalogs, so that other backyard astronomers could compare their views to Hubble’s. We’ve used our observational knowledge to explain when and how others can see these objects themselves and to create basic star charts to accompany Hubble’s images. I believe our experience as amateurs provides perspective, helping us better explain why Hubble’s crisp views from above the atmosphere are so vital to astronomy and advancing our understanding of the universe.

When Kevin gives tours of Hubble’s control center and describes Hubble’s images, for example, he often shares his own photos of the same objects imaged by Hubble and tells visitors when they could view these things in the night sky. We’ve both found that when members of the public find out that they can see some of the same objects Hubble has, it heightens their interest in the telescope and its observations. Reviewing some of Hubble’s images has also inspired us to venture outside to revisit these objects or view them for the first time with our own eyes.

Fuelless Pointing

The space telescope has no thrusters. To change angles, it uses Newton’s third law of motion: It spins its four reaction wheels in the opposite direction it wants to go, and the combined torques point it at any location on the sky. The telescope takes 15 minutes to turn 90° — the speed of the minute hand on a clock.

This visible-ultraviolet composite image of M94 highlights the stunning starburst ring encircling the spiral galaxy’s core.
NASA

Kevin attests that much of what he’s learned as an amateur astronomer — from names and nomenclatures to facts and figures to general astronomy concepts — aids him in his daily work. This includes understanding and evaluating decisions made by STScI in matters ranging from scheduling the telescope to calibrating its instruments. In one instance, Kevin’s familiarity with Messier objects helped when the calibration group needed to find a large open cluster in the spring sky after their go-to cluster for calibration, M35, slipped into Hubble’s solar avoidance zone. (This is a region of sky 54° in radius around our star that the space telescope can’t observe, lest its optical tube heat up dangerously.) Kevin was able to quickly recommend M44 or M67. He says that a firsthand knowledge and familiarity with CCD astrophotography has
also taught him the importance of the calibration frames that STScI uses to process Hubble’s images.

Looking back at Hubble’s 30 years (and onward to the future), I can’t help but feel that Hubble’s story and mine have been intertwined, and not just because I work on the team. Hubble has had an effect on us all. It has revolutionized the way we understand the universe, permeated our culture, and even changed the way we think about the cosmos. I know when I think of the Crab Nebula, for example, I don’t immediately think of the small, oval fuzz of light in my eyepiece — I visualize Hubble’s fantastic, colorful visage of tangled threads of glowing gas. I see the universe through Hubble’s eye. And from views of the universe in sci-fi movies to imaginative works of art, it’s clear that others do, too. I’d be surprised if Hubble hasn’t made some kind of impact in the life of every astronomy enthusiast around the planet it orbits.

We hope you enjoy the images we’ve shared with you on these pages as much as we do, and that they might inspire you to go outside and observe the night sky, too.

Dive into Hubble’s treasures.

Star formation
Released for Hubble’s 25th anniversary, this image features the 3,000-member-strong star cluster Westerlund 2 alongside clouds of gas and dust in the Gum 29 nebula that are giving birth to even more stars. The picture combines visible-light observations from the Advanced Camera for Surveys with infrared exposures from the Wide Field Camera 3.
NASA
Arp 194
In this Hubble image of Arp 194, stars appear to be “leaking” from galaxy to galaxy like water dripping from a faucet. In reality, the giant clusters of blue stars probably formed as a result of the interactions between the merging galaxies at the top, which would have compressed gas and spurred starbirth. Fellow amateur Kevin Hartnett and I have picked some of our favorite Hubble images from the last 30 years to share with you on the following pages.
NASA / ESA / Hubble Heritage Team (STSCI / AURA)
IC418
This image of the Spirograph Nebula (IC 418) is an old classic of Hubble’s that has fascinated me for years. I never get over how much complex detail there is in this planetary nebula.
NASA
NGC1999
I love the dramatic contrast in this Hubble image of reflection nebula NGC 1999. Infrared observations suggest that the dark region is not a dense cloud, as once thought, but an actual hole in the nebula.
NASA
Carina Jet
Forming stars shoot pairs of jets. Mostly hidden in the visible image.
NASA
The jets of a protostar in Carina become clear in infrared.
NASA
NGC 5189
Of all the planetary nebulae Hubble has observed, this one, NGC 5189, must be one of the most visibly dynamic. What events transpired during the central star’s death to create all these interesting shapes?
NASA
NGC 1015
Hubble studied this “hidden gem” of a galaxy to help astronomers improve the precision of the universe’s expansion rate. Astronomers identified dozens of Cepheid variables and a Type Ia supernova (both of which are used as cosmic distance markers) in this barred spiral, called NGC 1015 and located 118 million light-years away.
NASA
M64
I must have a thing for galaxies with prominent dust lanes, because while Hubble’s Sombrero Galaxy image is my favorite, I adore this picture of the Black Eye Galaxy (M64) almost as much. This spiral galaxy clearly has a story to tell — probably that it tore apart and cannibalized a smaller galaxy. This is an object that I particularly love to look at through my telescope and compare to the Hubble image to dig into the details.
NASA
NGC 5866
This Hubble image of M102 fascinates me. There is so much to take in, from the tendrils of dust that curl above and below the galaxy’s disk and the blue line of stars that extend farther out from the ends of the dusty part of the disk, to the white elliptical halo of stars enveloping the disk and the faraway galaxies embedded in the background.
NASA

This article originally appeared in the April 2020 issue of Sky & Telescope.

Comments


Image of Peter Wilson

Peter Wilson

April 24, 2020 at 3:02 pm

Nice!

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