does the hubble telescope have any flaws?
110726
When the Hubble was first launched, it was discovered that the main mirror was polished to slightly the wrong curvature, making everything look a bit blurry.  The first shuttle servicing mission put in place some corrective optics to correct the problem...sort of like a near-sighted person having to wear glasses.  That remedied the blurry vision.  Along the way, several stabilizing gyros have fail and have been replaced, but without another servicing mission and more failed gyros, the Hubble will be eventually out of service.
1068112
We just don't know yet cause that Hubble Telescope is only strong enough to see a certain distance. \n\nScientifically we just don't know and I am not at liberty to guess....Neither are you. hehe
82338
The Hubble Space Telescope is administered by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI).  STScI is operated by the Associate of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), under a contract with NASA.  \n\nAll scheduling is done by STScI.  There is more information on their home page at:
1170213
It depends on what you need telescope for.  Things like Jupiter, Saturn, the Moon, the Orion Nebula will look great.  This is a great out of the box scope but it isn't a large one.  If you want to do a lot of deep space exploration you need a bigger/different scope.  There is an article at Sky & Telescope about chosing the right scope.\n\nhttp://skyandtelescope.com/howto/scopes/article_241_1.asp
9814
Contact him at KIRBY ALGUIRE (kirbyandlora@btinternet.com)\n\nThe Hennigar Reflector\nIn 1932, London Centre member Donald M. Hennigar built two Newtonian reflectors, a 6" and 8". Mr. Hennigar showed these telescopes at the RASC London Centre meeting on November 11, 1932, and the telescopes were also set up for a star night at the Higgins' farm on September 14, 1934. Saturn and Mizar were targets that night.\n\nMr. Hennigar served as London Centre vice-president in 1936, 1937 and 1938. He and his wife attended many meetings from 1931 until his death in 1951. When Mrs. Hennigar passed away a few years later, the two reflectors and a 4" refractor that he also built were in the hands of their daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Bill Pollard. The Pollards never used the telescopes, but stored them carefully for decades. When Mrs. Pollard, the daughter of D.M. Hennigar, passed away in 1996, Mr. Pollard decided that the telescopes should be given to someone with an interest in astronomy, and found KIRBY ALGUIRE, the son of a friend.\n\nThe 8" telescope looks very similar to the 6" version shown above. Of course, some work needs to be done to restore the Hennigar reflector to its former glory. Current London Centre President Dave McCarter cleaned the mirror and put it on the Foucault tester. It is nearly f/8, shows severe astigmatism and is not well-corrected, with a central depression and a slightly turned edge. The turned edge is almost normal considering the way that mirrors were parabolized at the time. The edge is hidden by the ring mount. London Centre member Dave Rubenhagen reports that the mount, a tapered steel pedestal with an interesting worm gear movement, can be fixed up. The tube is made of rolled sheet metal and can also be rejuvenated. Before too long, the Hennigar reflector will once again be gathering starlight.\n\nLook their pictures in this site\nhttp://www.astro.uwo.ca/~rasc/Hennigar.html\nhttp://www.weasner.com/etx/astrophotography/2005/nikon.html
198840
Actually, if it were able to survive such a move, this would help some things, because being so close to the earth has proved a problem for the Hubble. While I was working at the Space Telescope Science Institute, there was a bunch of panic because of the way, if I recall correctly, the planet's magnetic field was effecting one of the cameras.\n\nBut even if I'm correct, it would do more harm than good, because of how poorly designed the whole machine is. Remember, this is the device which has required two or three different "emergency" rescue missions for really stupid, bumbling reasons.\n\nThere was the "forgot to convert yards to meters" nonsense, which kept the Hubble from working correctly when it first launched and which, though you'll never hear them admit it, actually has had a permanant effect. The "corrective lense" only puts the pics back into the same ballpark, but it's still a middleman, slightly degrading the image from what it'd have been if the mistake hadn't been made at all.\n\nThen there was the camera problem I'm remembering. Apparently nobody thought to wonder what effect radiation in earth's orbit would have on the system. I think it was the GHRS.\n\nThey replaced the GHRS with NICMOS, which immediately suffered problems of its own, again which should have been anticipated.\n\nThen gyros failed.\n\nOh, and that computer...remember when they "installed a computer upgrade" in 1999? That "upgrade" was a 486 motherboard.\n\nThat's right, at a time when you were throwing out your Pentium because it wasn't worth using, THEY were installing a 486 and calling it an "upgrade".\n\nSend this thing out of easy service range, and it'll probably break down immediately. They couldn't get it right, or even close to right, even when it was exactly where it was supposed to be.
383249
The Hubble Space Telescope can see out to a distance of several billions of light-years. A light-year is the distance that light travels in 1 year. Since light has a speed of 186,000 miles per second (light can travel about 7 times around the entire earth in 1 second!), light travels about 5,865,696,000,000 miles in just one year. You can attach 9 more zeros to the end of this to get 1 billion light-years and another one for 10 billion light-years. The farthest that Hubble has seen so far is about 10-15 billion light-years away. The farthest area looked at is called the Hubble Deep Field.
811601
Amateur astronomers are divided on the merits of go-to (automatic pointing) telescopes. Some of the disadvantages are:\n• To get go-to, you either have to pay more or settle for less telescope for the money.\n• There's a set-up process that you have to learn and perform so the telescope can find things.\n• The telescope's database often includes objects that are too dim to see under many conditions.\n• The less expensive ones, especially if not carefully set up, can be more like go-near than go-to.\n• If you always depend on go-to, you'll be lost when the batteries die.\n\nThe alternative is to find things using star charts and a finder scope. The disadvantage of this is that you have to learn to find your way around the sky, and it can sometimes take a long time to find things.\n\nWhich is better comes down to a matter of personal preference, and it's hard to predict which way your son would prefer. If he learns by doing and likes to figure things out for himself, a manual telescope and a good beginner's book such as "Turn Left at Orion" may be better than a go-to scope.
903792
Firstly, Uranus and Neptune are planets, not galaxies. But if you are using the term correcly, then even a pair of binoculars will allow you to see these things if you know where to look (in the case of galaxies you need mostly dark skies). Now if you want to know if you can see them WELL as opposed to *just* seeing them, then as others have pointed out, the larger the aperture (diameter of objective lens or mirror) the more you will see. Because of expense reflectors are more suited than refractors >100mm to see these things.
138088
The hubble telescope it up above all the atmospheric disturbance, allowing for much higher quality photos.\n\nFor the same reason stars twinkle, land based telescopes have a limited resolution power, after a certain size, it doesnt really help any (unless you want to build a complicated atmospheric correction machine to adjust the mirror to compensate).
725849
Sure, it's possible. But you won't see any artifacts there. Even the largest telescope on earth does not have the resolution to see a 10 meter spacecraft from a distance of 350,000 km.\n\nAn object that size at that distance subtends an arc of .005 arcseconds. Both Hubble and Keck (the best telescopes on or near earth) have a resolution limit of about .05 arcseconds.
895404
Its discovered a lot of new galaxies, moons, comets, etc.  It is finding out lots about black holes etc.  I think astromers are finding out new things about our universe all the time thanks to the Hubble Telescope.
217437
Not in the same way that light reflects. This is an important topic in X-Ray telescopes. See below!
850965
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keck_telescope
190331
The Hubble has changed my life by allowing me to see some of the more glorious things in the universe. The beauty that this device has brought to us is...is...is. It actually leaves me speechless.\n\nThe Hubble is one of our greatest tools in that it shows us that the place where we live is truly wonderous and allows us to put our lives into perspective. When you look at a nebula up close, it makes that argument you just had with a co-worker seem so pointless.
209338
Space telescopes are not prone neither to difraction due to the atmosphere; besides, the air flow in the atmosphere introduces distorsion in the light path. \nThese two things (distortion and loss of light power) limit the effective seeing capability of a telescope.\nOne solution has been space telescopes, just like the Hubble. But another solution has been to construct "virtual" large diameter telescopes: they set an array of smaller telescopes which are far apart from each other (the array spans a few kilometers). Then, first, the total amount of light collected is equal to the sum of the light collected in each telescope. The distortion gets "compensated" among the several telescopes.\nAs far as I know, one such telescope, already operational, is being constructed in Chile. The location was selected for being the dryest on earth.
828006
It's a great toy. A 60mm aperture (2.4") won't gather much light (which also determines the amount of detail you can make out at higher magnifications). Is this a refractor? Cheap models suffer from various distortions produced by inferior coatings, poor collimation, etc.\n\nYou can see a long way (moon, mars, stars, etc), but thre real question is how good the image is (fuzzy, dim, etc)\n\nTry the following website (page goes to a celestron 760 mm refractor - a decent instrument. Lots of description.)\n\nhttp://www.telescope.com/jump.jsp?itemID=116608&itemType=PRODUCT&path=1%2C2%2C4%2C13&KickerID=699&KICKER