Most people's knowledge of the Hubble Space Telescope is limited to NASA's sheepish admission that the HST was built with a flawed optical system, a fact discovered shortly after the billion-dollar telescope's 1990 launch. But this blunder is just one chapter in the Hubble saga, a story that begins with the HST's initial conception in 1946 and continues to today's constant stream of stunning images that Hubble beams back to Earth. In Hubble: A New Window to the Universe, astronomy writer Daniel Fischer and research astronomer Hilmar Duerbeck seek to put the telescope back in its proper context: not as a symbol of government ineptitude, but as a complex, cutting-edge instrument of tremendous importance to science.
Fischer and Duerbeck accomplish this not only by sharing the fruits of Hubble's far-reaching vision in the form of dozens of striking, otherworldly images, but also by detailing the telescope's history and intricate inner workings. The bulk of the book by far, though, is a discussion of what Hubble has allowed us to see, interspersed with helpful diagrams, photographs, and illustrations. Hubble is a great find for anyone in search of a meaty primer on deep-space astronomy. --Paul Hughes
The Planetarian
Stunning images...make this a wonderful volume to tuck away for posterity.
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