Questions tagged [hubble-telescope]
Questions regarding the Hubble Space Telescope, a visible light telescope orbiting Earth.
134 questions
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Flux unit conversion
I have a jwst nircam image of a galactic field. The science images are in units of MegaJansky per steradian (MJy/sr), and so the zeropoint is 28.08652 AB mag . When I ran sextractor on this image , I ...
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Luminosity function calculation
I have M_UV(absolute UV magnitudes) and redshifts of some high z sources and I want to fit UVLF for them.
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GAIN in Sextractor
I'm using SExtractor for source detection from JWST CEERS NIRCam images. I'm using the fully reduced mosaics provided in CEERS website (The mosaics are on pixel scales of 0.03"/pix and are pixel-...
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PSF Matching Images from different filters
I have a fits images corresponding to different filters of JWST. I want to make sure they are PSF matched for accurate photometric color measurements by using SExtractor. I wanted to match them to ...
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Using EAZY as photometric redshift estimation tool
I am new to JWST data analysis and currently trying to extract redshift of high redshift sources from the catalogue I created from SExtractor. I'm using EAZY (Brammer et al. 2008) for this purpose.
I ...
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Using data from the Fine Guidance System (HST)
Has anyone been able to successfully use data from the Hubble Space Telescope's fine guidance system in order to create light curves?
I found a bunch of older papers that reference this instrument, ...
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How hard or soft is the Hubble's "science floor" due to atmospheric torque? Do some kinds of observations have lower floors than others?
After 04:58 in Scott Manley's How Failed Gyros Are Making Hubble's Life Harder:
And while the telescope is floating in space, it is still subject to small forces which can adjust its orientation. ...
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What is the "handful of observations of close fast moving objects that (Hubble) can't actually track anymore" due to the new one-gyro operation?
After 13:49 in Scott Manley's How Failed Gyros Are Making Hubble's Life Harder:
And so with all these systems working together, the telescope can still point at the target and still do top quality ...
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Has Hubble ever imaged Titania?
I can't find any non-voyager images of Uranus' largest moon - Titania. Did Hubble produce any?
Titania is about 1.5 times smaller, but is about 1.5 times closer than Pluto - and we did have blurry ...
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What is Hubble's parameter/constant H0 supposed to mean, exactly? [duplicate]
Surely it must mean that every second each Mpc expands by that much. Well what else, could it be.
So if the expansion is accelerating, then how can H0 be decreasing!?
Let's look at Hubble's law: v=H0D,...
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How to Determine Absolute Magnitude of a Galaxy using HST FITS Image
I'm attempting my first serious research project but due to... various circumstances, I am going to mostly be solving problems like this on my own with minimal outside help.
As for the actual problem, ...
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Can you identify the source of this image of the Pacman Nebula (NGC 281)?
Months ago I downloaded this glorious image of the Pacman Nebula (NGC 281) in Cassiopeia. I have not been able to identify the source of the image (e.g., Hubble, James Webb Space Telescope, etc.) and ...
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How do you estimate standard deviation of sky from (Hubble) image
I'm working on a simulation project with Hubble data and I need the standard deviation of the sky in ADU per pixel. Sometimes I can obtain a fits file (e.g. hdfs image), open this with astropy, and ...
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Interpreting the color of galaxies in deep field images
The HST produced some deep field images in mostly visible light, which contain thousands of galaxies that range in color from white to red (e.g. see here). I understand that the interpretation of ...
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Conversion to Jy of Hubble WFC3 units (electrons/s) and of Spitzer IRAC (MJy/sr)
I am trying to figure out how to convert the units of some FITS files to Jy. These files refer to observations in different bands using different instruments. I list them below with my way of ...
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Why can four-eight "rays" be seen around all stars in astronomy photographs from the Hubble Space telescope? [duplicate]
In famous astronomy photographs from the Hubble Space telescope such as the Pillars of Creation, each star has four rectilinear "rays" projecting out in the intercardinal directions, and ...
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How often and for what reasons does Hubble use two different instruments at the same time?
A comment under this answer to ** links to Hubblesite.org's Hubble Shoots the Moon The image, its description and credits are shown below.
As explained, the purpose of the observation was to record a ...
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Orientation of the optical telescope assembly in the Hubble Space Telescope
What is the orientation of the optical telescope assembly with respect to the direction of motion of the Hubble Space Telescope? If it happens to be in the direction of motion, does the primary mirror ...
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List of stars and galaxies in astronomy images
I am aware of popular initiatives such as the Wikipedia articles listing astronomical objects on the basis of some criteria but... do some kind of systematic indexing, or catalogue, of objects found, ...
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What is this curve, captured both in the Webb and Hubble images?
Any guesses what this might be?
Source: tweet
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How many Milky Way stars in the Andromeda picture?
I am new to Astronomy, I got interested lately thanks to James Webb Space Telescope. I have some questions. In this zoomable picture of Andromeda galaxy, how many of our stars (Milky Way stars) in ...
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How to plot matplotlib plots as tables in python(hdf5 tables)
I have extracted the data from a fits file and plotted a spectra.i need to do the same for multiple fits files .how can I store the resultant spectra's as a hdf5 table or fits table?
And which ...
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Pulling spectral data from Hubble Telescope automatically
Libraries currently I am using: Astropy, Numpy, Matplotlib
I am looking to create a python script that pulls spectral data (wavelength vs flux chart) from the Hubble Telescope, specifically for Be ...
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Why does Hubble's F850LP filter have a different shape than all the others shown in Dr. Becky's video "ALL THE DETAILS on Earendel..."?
It will take some time to read through @Pela's excellent answer to Is there a better explanation of this picture showing the very distant star "Earendel"? and to slowly ease myself into it I'...
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Is there a better explanation of this picture showing the very distant star "Earendel"?
"Close-up of the tiny region where Earendel happened to fall right on top of the narrow line where the magnification increases by (tens of) thousands of times. A cluster of many stars is seen ...
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General process of calculating what a telescope's diffraction spikes would look like?
I was reading this question about the JWST's diffraction spikes, and I was rather surprised by the magnitude of the 4 sets of diffraction spikes.
The large hexagonal spike pattern I believe is formed ...
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How do JWST and Hubble compare in detecting small bodies in the solar system that are a) white, b) black, c) Arrokoth-like, d) Voyager-like?
Assume the object is small, spherical, and illuminated only by the Sun, and has some apparent motion. The object is either:
a) white - reflecting 100% perfectly diffusely (assume low temperature)
b) ...
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Is it possible to take the same images in HST palette as the optic telescope but with radio telescope?
Is it possible to detect signal from SII, H$\alpha$, OIII using radio telescope and make the similar images as optic telescope? If no, can we use the different elements to take signal?
What minimal ...
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Are all space documentaries CGI?
Consider the following video by BBC about the Pillars of Creation:
According to a quick google search, the POC are 7000 light years away.
If we just had a picture of ...
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Finding raw HST data for WFC or HRC?
I'm doing a project that requires raw .fits images that contain a certain galaxy from the HST (F814W filter).
I've been able to find the calibrated images of the WFC view using the MAST data portal. ...
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What exactly causes very bright sources, such as supernovae, to appear as large circles in photographs?
Consider images such as those in https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2021/news-2021-007, which show bright supernovae embedded in their host galaxies. No matter which telescope and which ...
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What is Hubbles WFC3 "UVIS 47 G200" filter? What is it used for? How to find an example?
Extensive reading for Are the dispersion directions of the prism and the grating in Hubble WFC3 UVIS G280 perpendicular? Can we call this a "grism"? With cross-disparsion? led me to ...
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Are the dispersion directions of the prism and the grating in Hubble WFC3 UVIS G280 perpendicular? Can we call this a "grism"? With cross-disparsion?
Prologue
From Into the UV: A precise transmission spectrum of HAT-P-41b using Hubble's WFC3/UVIS G280 grism:
The UVIS grism, however, comes with several quirks that make it difficult to observe with ...
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Why do space telescopes have GRISMS? Why a grating AND a prism for cross-dispersion in slitless spectroscopy?
https://hst-docs.stsci.edu/wfc3ihb lists the page 8.2 Slitless Spectroscopy with the UVIS G280 Grism which contains details of one of the GRISMs of the Hubble Space Telescope (GRISM = Grating + Prism)....
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Shortest and longest wavelengths at which exoplanets have been resolved from their primaries?
Phys.org's Radio signals from distant stars suggest hidden planets summarizes the Nature Astronomy paper The population of M dwarfs observed at low radio frequencies (also in arXiv) but this is an ...
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Are there any Hubble images of Polymele available?
Lucy is a spacecraft that will visit trojan asteroids, among which there is the asteroid Polymele. Before doing an occultation observing campaign for the asteroid Polymele in October 2021, the Lucy ...
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How does the Hubble Space Telescope measure the speed of the wind inside Jupiter's Great Red Spot?
Space.com's Jupiter's winds of change show increased storm speeds in Great Red Spot and Hubblesite.org's Hubble Shows Winds in Jupiter's Great Red Spot are Speeding Up both link to the recent open ...
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How to properly compare radio to optical/NIR images?
I mainly work with radio continuum data and recently I started working on some HST hydrogen recombination line datasets to compare with the radio data that I have, but I'm very confused about what is ...
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How was the recently publicized Hubble image of a distant galaxy showing clearly resolved lensed in an Einstein ring produced? When was it produced?
The 24-Sep-2021 NASA Goddard video Einstein Ring Spotted by Hubble and it's Goddard Media Studio's page Einstein Ring Spotted By Hubble discuss the image, but don't really give credit to how it was ...
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Do telescope measurements (in meters, usually) measure in a straight line, from edge to edge, or follow the curve of the mirror?
Somehow, no site or book or magazine has clarified this question for me....
Perhaps I am an idiot, but,
Is the parabolic primary mirror on the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) 6.5 meters from ...
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How is Hubble? What role does the payload computer play for astronomic observations?
Hubble seems to have a issues since weeks. Here what NASA says:
July 13, 2021 - Formal Review Completed to Assess All Operations Related to Hubble's Possible Switch to Backup Hardware
NASA completed ...
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How much real time was compressed into this 10 second long timelapse Hubble video of Jupiter's aurora?
The HubbleESA video Timelapse of Jupiter’s auroras is discussed in the ESAHubble page Timelapse of Jupiter’s auroras and includes the identifier heic1613a. However ...
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Do point spread functions from large single telescopes using adaptive optics still look like Airy functions for narrow-band filters?
this answer to Claim that 30-m class telescopes will have resolution far superior to Hubble: true? mentions
...the possibility of attaining near diffraction-limited images using adaptive optics.
The ...
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What (if any) capabilities of Hubble are unique and irreplaceable? What can it do that can't be done by any other ground or space-based telescope?
It's impossible to summarize in an SE post the depth and breadth of the contributions to science made using the Hubble Space Telescope.
Above the atmosphere it has
access to an extremely dark and ...
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How long was the HST initially supposed to work?
For space missions, there is typically a minimum time that is defined for the mission to fulfill all of its science objectives, then an extended mission with extra objectives. And after that, the ...
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Can we get a picture of Oumuamua with Hubble Space Telescope?
Can we get a picture of Oumuamua with Hubble Space Telescope?
If not, what are the reasons?
Answers why other telescopes might fail to get a picture of Oumuamua are welcomed as well.
user40631
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How exactly can the Hubble Space Telescope see up to 15 billion light years?
I've been researching about the Hubble Space Telescope on nasa.gov, and I've read that Hubble uses a digital camera to take pictures like a cell phone. That's all I've found so far. I can't find any ...
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Will JWST have fewer observing sessions of much longer duration compared to Hubble?
In The Observatory @Donald.McLean linked to Scientists will peer at first galaxies with James Webb telescope which says in part:
Many of the proposed tasks for the Webb telescope were planned and ...
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Has Hubble photographed Venus in near IR? If so how does it compare to the new and exciting Parker Solar Probe image?
Phys.org's Parker Solar Probe offers stunning view of Venus includes the image below taken by the Parker Solar Probe during it's most recent gravitational assist flyby of Venus as it continues to rid ...
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What produces all of these small radial striations in this very overexposed image of a star by Hubble's WFC2? (the four big ones are from the vanes)
In a recent astrometry question in Space SE I needed to check Proxima Centauri's position and the article contained the image below.
I've saturated the colors, cropped it, and added a "...
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