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| ||||| Monday, March 04, 2002 - 11:02 pm Is it possible to request Hubble to take images of deep space focusing on a 'specific' distance, please? If so, my request would be for 2 billion miles (whatever measurement an old fashioned mile would constitute), taking the Sun as the center, and allowing for Hubble's distance from the Sun. Finally ending up with images 2 billion miles around the Sun. Do you already have images from Deep Space with these coordinates, or close enough? Hopefully I expressed myself clearly for you folks. Thanks in anticipation. | |
| ||||| Monday, March 04, 2002 - 11:28 pm Betty, I'm not an astronomer, though many of my colleagues are. I'm fairly certain that many of the objects Hubble has observed are much more than 2 billion miles away and perhaps as much as 10 billion miles away. Some of those protogalaxies are waaaay out there! The bad news for those hoping to find Planet X is that Hubble hasn't spotted it, at least not yet, but we do know that there are many asteroids out beyond Pluto which are close to Pluto's size. The line between planet and "minor planet" is fuzzy and gets settled by a vote in the International Astronomical Union, I believe. Others are looking for things that pieces of great literature have described. Unfortunately for those who would like to read these literally, no mountains have been spotted yet. On what would they stand? Believe what you will, Betty, but I personally prefer to enjoy such literature as works of art, not as statements of scientific fact. There should be room in our lives for both art and science. For that matter, that leaves plenty of room in our lives that we should set aside for matters of faith. These areas touch each other in my life, but they do not overlap to the point of causing conflict. I am happy enjoying the message that each provides me with. That's my personal view of things, anyway, and you of course are entitled to determine your view of things that make the most sense to you and make you the happiest. I wish you peace and joy. J.R. Frysinger, CAMS Dept. of Physics and Astronomy College of Charleston Charleston, SC 29424 http://www.cofc.edu/~frysingj | |
| ||||| Monday, March 04, 2002 - 11:48 pm Betty, 2 billion miles is between the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. Most of what Hubble observes is considerably farther. 10 billion miles is still pretty close. A light year is about 6 trillion miles and the nearest star is about 4 light years away. Focusing at these distances is meaningless (or nearly so). Astronomical objects are "at infinity" so they are essentially all in focus at the same time. If you look at the Hubble Deep Field you will see objects in focus which are at extremely different distances. | |
| ||||| Tuesday, March 05, 2002 - 02:16 am Perhaps I expand on this "at infinity" thing. For any optical system, people loosely refer to "infinity" for any object further away that the square of the aperture diameter divided by the wavelength of the light. You can use one fixed focus for anything from this distance out to infinity. For your eye that's about 20 meters. For the Hubble, it's about 10,000 km. Since everything Hubble looks at is much further away than that, there's no need to change the focus of Hubble for each thing it looks at. | |
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