Astronomy Observation Log 4 (Astronomy Cast - The Hubble Space Telescope)

Managing to get a telescope above the atmosphere is a tremendous feat for mankind, benefiting our knowledge of space in an incredible amount of ways and also illuminating the beauty of distant celestial objects. 

As the podcast makes an important point of, the atmosphere has been "astronomers' worst enemy."

The concept for the Hubble Telescope, an extraterrestrial tool, arose in the 1940s. The materialization of the actual instrument came about by the 60s. Many great astronomical affairs take part through committees- the funding for the Hubble Telescope was no exception, although even Congress lent money to the affair. The Hubble Space Telescope was carried into orbit in 1990. 

Originally, there were major issues with the curvature of the telescope's mirror- the outside was not sufficiently polished, and the first pictures taken by it were hideous. Once the astronomers in charge figured out this error with the outer edges of the mirror, they could fix the failing facets and install new detectors. Astronauts, interestingly, are excellent construction workers for these instruments in space...

Corrective optics were incorporated directly into the instrument. Improvements are consistently being made upon the Hubble.

I learned from the podcast that infrared is one of the most important parts of the spectrum for astronomers, because it allows them to see the most distant parts of the galaxy. The Hubble Space Telescope was the first to allow us to pick up on those incredibly long wavelengths.

The Hubble Space Telescope has been serviced many times.