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To: ken5050
When the Hubbel was launched, and later fixed in space, I thought the consensus was that earth based scopes were done..the future was in orbitals copes..because they avoid the distortion of the earth's atmosphere.
Also..aren't Hawaii's active volcanoes a potential danger?

Things change - like the shuttle fleet going dark and the newer space-based telescopes moving to ever higher orbits. We learned just how flexible the Hubble could be after 3 upgrade missions to this 'non-maintainable' orbiting telescope, but even at that orbit (567km~), the Hubble was 'bothered' by the 'noisy' Earth. It's successor, the James Webb Space Telescope will be at Lagrange 2 site that is out beyond the Moon (1.5 million Kilometers).

Add to the mix that use time of the Hubble is timed to seconds or less and the same is for every one of the space observatories and you get a real bottleneck. Plus when the Hubble was the new kid on the block, computers and adaptive mirrors were very primitive compared till now and you start to see why new observatories are still being built on Earth.

As for active vulcanology, Mauna Kea, while considered dormant, last erupted 4,500 years ago and given it's pre-eminent height and atmospheric clarity, is thought to be worth the investment.

19 posted on 02/27/2011 1:25:18 PM PST by SES1066 (Thank you for your vote in November, now let us get to work!)
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To: SES1066

Thanks for the info...Hawaii ( the whole chain) is a volcanic hot spot..and there are other active sites..no other place to build a scope?


23 posted on 02/27/2011 1:38:18 PM PST by ken5050 (Admin Moderators rule!!!!)
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