Hubblecast 40: Wide Field Camera 3 - Hubble's New Miracle Camera

In early 2009, a team of astronauts visited Hubble to repair the wear and tear of twenty years of operating in a hostile environment - and to install two new instruments, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, and Wide Field Camera 3 - better known as WFC3.

Credits, download options and more information are available on: http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/hubblecast40a/

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Hubblecast
• NASA
• ESA
• Hubble
• Space
• Telescope
• astronomy
• sky
• universe

[HubbleESA]

Hi Digephil -

There's an X-shaped strut which holds up one of the mirrors in the telescope assembly. This affects the light as it passes through the telescope and causes faint cross shapes to be projected around bright stars. This is very common in telescopes - not just Hubble.

[superdau]

@Digephil

As far as I know, it's caused by the beams that hold the second (smaller) mirror of the telescope. It's some kind of interference/diffraction pattern.

[Kraktzor]

Yeah I know, this is so cool!

[TheBetterGame]

it is sad so few people watch videos like this :(

[Digephil]

what causes the crosses that come from bright points of light?