Slide 1

Hubble Vital Statistics

HST is in Low Earth Orbit (~600 km)

Primary is 2.4 meters

Launched in 1990

Regularly serviced

Cost ~$2+ billion

Suite of changing instruments

Hubble to Astronomers

Despite the cost, evaluated as most science per dollar.

Time Allocated by Orbit

Last year, 26000 orbits requested by > 1100 proposals, 5300 orbits approved (250 approved)

Cosmology and galaxies usually the big winners.

Hubble’s Uncertain Future

Jan. 2004, NASA Director Sean O’Keefe announced it was too dangerous to service HST with a shuttle mission (no aborts).

Without regular service, HST will fail

Gyroscopes & Orbital Decay

Service also provides upgrades

Computers! Solar panels, etc.

Instruments! STIS just failed.

Waiting on the “Next Generation” Space Telescope (NGST) renamed the James Webb Telescope

The Hubble Law

Slide 6

The Hubble Law using galaxies with visible Cepheid variables.

“Tuning Fork” Diagram

M51: The Whirlpool Galaxy

Interacting Galaxies: The Antennae

Interacting Galaxies: Cartwheel

Active Galactic Nuclei: AGNs

A small fraction of galaxies have extremely bright “unresolved” star-like cores (active nuclei)

Shown here is an HST image of NGC 7742, a so-called “Seyfert galaxy” after Carl Seyfert who did pioneering work in the 1940s

Slide 14

Spatially Resolved Spectroscopy from Space Shows BH Signatures

HST STIS shows evidence for a super massive black hole in M84 based on spatially resolved gas dynamics (Bower et al 1997).

Slide 16

Slide 17

The Hubble Deep Field

Eagle Nebula

Orion Nebula

Protostellar Disks

Simple Planetary Nebula

IC 3568 from the Hubble Space Telescope

Complicated P-N in a Binary System

M2-9 (from the Hubble Space Telescope)

A Gallery of P-N from Hubble

Crab Nebula Movie

Slide 28

Slide 29

V838 Light Echo: The Movie

Slide 31

Slide 32

Slide 33

A Shameless Plug to Display during Q&A…


	HST is in Low Earth Orbit (~600 km)
	Primary is 2.4 meters
	Launched in 1990
	Regularly serviced
	Cost ~$2+ billion
	Suite of changing instruments


	Despite the cost, evaluated as most science per dollar.
	Time Allocated by Orbit
	Last year, 26000 orbits requested by > 1100 proposals, 5300 orbits approved (250 approved)
	Cosmology and galaxies usually the big winners.


	Jan. 2004, NASA Director Sean O’Keefe announced it was too dangerous to service HST with a shuttle mission (no aborts).
	Without regular service, HST will fail
		Gyroscopes & Orbital Decay
	Service also provides upgrades
		Computers! Solar panels, etc.
		Instruments! STIS just failed.
	Waiting on the “Next Generation” Space Telescope (NGST) renamed the James Webb Telescope


	A small fraction of galaxies have extremely bright “unresolved” star-like cores (active nuclei)

	Shown here is an HST image of NGC 7742, a so-called “Seyfert galaxy” after Carl Seyfert who did pioneering work in the 1940s


	HST STIS shows evidence for a super massive black hole in M84 based on spatially resolved gas dynamics (Bower et al 1997).