Podcast: A Tale of Three Telescopes

• By Sara Mitchell
• May 31, 2009
• Comments Off on Podcast: A Tale of Three Telescopes

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The telescope on everyone’s mind during this month’s Space Shuttle flight was certainly the Hubble Space Telescope, as astronauts inspected, repaired, and upgraded the satellite for years of additional scientific observations.  But two additional telescopes were aboard Atlantis for this historic flight – a museum-quality replica of one of Galileo’s telescopes, and a 200-year-old telescope built by master craftsman Jesse Ramsden.

To give you the scoop about these telescopes, we interviewed Marvin Bolt of the Adler Planetarium.  Hubble may be NASA’s best-known telescope, but it wouldn’t be here without 400 years of innovation.

STS-125 and SM4

Nearly 20 years after its launch, astronauts visited the Hubble Space Telescope once again to swap out instruments, make repairs, and prepare the satellite for additional years of use.  This month, astronauts made a series of spacewalks to get Hubble into tip-top shape.  To learn more about this mission, visit:

• STS-125: Final Shuttle Mission to Hubble Space Telescope – The official NASA site for the mission.
• STS-125 Launch Video – From NASA TV, a high-definition video of the launch on May 11th. Check out the channel for many more mission videos!
• Twitter: @Astro_Mike – The Twitter account of astronaut Mike Massimino, updated live from space during the flight.

About the Telescopes

Astronauts brought two very special historic telescopes aboard the Shuttle for the flight.  To learn more about these scopes, check out:

• Galileo’s telescope into orbit aboard the Shuttle – From the Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence, Italy.
• Jesse Ramsden – Wikipedia entry about the maker of the 200-year-old telescope brought on Atlantis by astronaut John Grunsfeld. You can see an example of Ramsden’s work here.

Credits: