Spark and Perl go looking
A telescope.
In SPACE.
Above all the wobbly air.
That is why it sees so well.
Has it always worked?
No.
They switched it on and everything came out blurry.
So what did they do?
Flew up and fitted it with spectacles.
I am not joking.
So anything above the air sees perfectly.
The mirror was wrong.
…It needed to be above the air AND the right shape.
Being in the best place is no good if you bring the wrong eye.
One pair of spectacles, and it has been perfect ever since?
The spectacles worked. It has seen sharply ever since.
But it would not have lasted on its own. Astronauts went five times.
Each time they brought new parts up and took the old ones home.
…Five visits? Did something else break?
The spinning tops that aim it. The wings that make its power. Its computer and its camera.
And the mirror we talked about.
Yes, if you are patient — fainter and higher than the space station, moving in the same steady way.
It only flies over the middle of the world. From most of Europe it never gets high enough.
Where to find the Hubble Space Telescope, and when
Where the Earth is clear, it climbs high in the sky. The darker it gets, the lower it stays. Where it is black, it never comes up. No shading at all: it does not matter where you live.
What do I need to see the Hubble Space Telescope?
You can see it with just your eyes.
Binoculars with 10× magnification show it, if you rest them on a fence or a wall.
A 150 mm telescope does not help here — it is gone before you can aim.
Space
Eyes, binoculars, or telescope?
Read on
Go and look