Hubble Vision

This is a book about big science in space. The hubble telescope was the most complex piece of scientific equipment that was ever built to operate off of Earth. From its initial "mistake" in a poorly honed hyperbolic mirror - its "correction" became a major media event that nearly busted Nasa's budget - to the innumerable failing subsystems in constant need of adjustment, its success is something of a phenomenon. But a success it indisputably was, one of the greatest in the history of human endeavor and easily the equal to, say, the creation of the Gothic cathedral. Images from the telescope have become so uniquitous, such as its use as background in Star Trek, that we would be shocked if they disappeared. Of course, the advancement of virtually all fields of astronomy that it spawned will enrich us forever. Not only can we plumb the composition of stars and search for planets more accurately, but such scientific givens as the Hubble constant are coming into question with the precision measurements not coming available. Even amateurs, if they come up with an interesting proposal, can get a crack at making scientific history. Peterson and Brandt cover these developments competently and clearly, with gorgeous photos throughout the book to add to its wonder. While they do not cover they public policy angle alll too well, the science is enough (even if it gets a bit too gee-whiz for my taste at times). Warmly recommended.

One of the greatest achievements in the history of humanity with regard to observational astronomy has to be the Hubble Space Telescope, our first real opportunity to see the universe 'up close and personal', in the visual light spectrum (among other spectra) without the interference of the earth's atmosphere. Launched in 1990, there was a collective gasp when it was discovered that this remarkable achievement needed specs (not the construction-data kind, but the old-fashioned kind - eyeglasses)! Not long thereafter, a shuttle mission set forth to do the needed repairs, and since then the results have been stunning.Carolyn Collins Petersen, an award-winning science writer with some specialty in astronomy, together with John C. Brandt, a researcher at the University of Colorado (he's even had an asteroid named for him), put together this early major book on the Hubble achievements. Their first chapter gives a brief history of the HST (Hubble Space Telescope) project, from concept to launch. They recount a narrative history of the first indications that there were problems, the excitement and the disappointment, as well as the correction. The sections on the history of observation and the technical specifications of the HST are interesting, as well, but the real glory is in the pictures.Throughout the rest of the text, the authors put pictures from the HST of the major objects in the sky together with composite pieces and partial images. For some of the planetary images, the authors show side-by-side comparisons with some of the planetary exploration missions (Voyager, etc.), and even against the close-up images, HST fares well. The photography of stars in all their various life-stages, gaseous formations to final supernovae, are glorious and informative. The galaxy images give great and stunning detail of some of the most distant structures. Alas, even the HST has trouble discerning in detail objects such as quasars, which remain a mystery, but more data has been obtained than ever before.The final chapter discusses topics such as distances, universal expansion, dark matter, and how the HST plays an observational role in collecting evidence in support of or variance to current theories on the universe. Petersen and Brandt discuss the general trends in cosmological thinking, accessible to the non-scientist and interesting to the scientifically trained.The epilogue is a bit moot at this point, as the text written in the early 1990s only covered the time period up to 2002; however, the HST project is a big-budget item, which means it is a political item, and the budgetary concerns, both institutional (NASA-related) and governmental (will Congress and Presidential administrations support it?) are always a concern. Hubble continues to be a source of pride for the NASA community, and a source of great information for the astronomical community around the world. This is a coffee-table book as well as an interesting scientific text.

Good overview for the general reader how cosmological observational data is obtained, in this reference in the context of the cutting-edge Hubble space telescope.

To the average person like myself it is simple uncomprehensable that way out here is all of this energy, peacefully and sometimes horrifically looming around us. Reading this book, and particularly looking intensely at the wonderful colour photographs, I cannot feel anything else but awe for the sheer original beauty of our universe, and the great bridges that we need to cross scientifically to even make an inch of sense of it. The text is easy enough for the pure enthusiast to understand the concepts, but for those with a thirst for knowledge, these pages reveal centuries of human time devoted to exploring milleniums and milleniums of universal time. It really does make you feel as though the only thing between us and the secret of everything is our humble mortality, not our need to know. Hubble Vision gives you a snapshot of the heavens, and beyond, something we'll never experince first hand in our life-time at least!