Currently, Hubble's almost circular orbit is carried out an altitude of km. And each trip around the Earth takes about 96 minutes. With Hubble circling the Earth 15 times a day, you would think it could be in seen in the sky quite often.
But there's a catch. Hubble is best seen from areas of the Earth that are between the latitudes of This is because Hubble's orbit is inclined to the equator at This inclination matches the latitude of Hubble's launch site - Cape Canaveral, Florida — and was the easiest and most economical orbit to establish.
In contrast, the ISS passes over much more of the Earth because its orbit has a higher inclination at This inclination was chosen because it works best for launches from Russia and it takes less fuel for the USA to launch to higher inclinations than it would for Russia to launch to lower inclinations.
In fact, not only is the Russian launch site at Baikonur further north than Cape Canaveral, but spacecraft launched from there are given an extra boost to ensure that if an accident were to happen no debris would fall into China, Russia's neighbour.
The outcome for Hubble, is that its flight path stretches as far north as Cape Canaveral, Florida and approximately as far south as Brisbane which has a latitude of So northern parts of Australia have great access to seeing the HST and can catch the telescope flying right overhead. Unfortunately for people in the south, like myself in Melbourne, the telescope travels much closer to the horizon, and it's even worse for Tasmania but not impossible.
Both websites allow you to adjust the latitude and longitude for your specific location, including in-built search facilities that will locate most cities and towns.
The Heavens-Above site provides a great star chart showing the telescope's path across the sky for each event, while N2YO. There are some great passes coming up for Darwin, including Sunday May 3 , when the telescope will travel directly overhead from am to am local time. A few days later it will be Brisbane's turn, with the best HST pass occurring on May 7 , between am and am.
Because Hubble will travel right overhead it will also be at its brightest during these passes. It will appear about as bright as the brightest star in the Southern Cross , known as Acrux which shines at a magnitude of 0. For other capital cities, which are further south, the HST doesn't climb as high in the sky and the best passes coming up will occur on the mornings of May 11 or May 12 click on the capital cities mentioned below to obtain details of each HST pass.
From Perth and Sydney , the telescope will appear about as bright as Gamma Crucis in the Southern Cross around magnitude 1. Adelaide and Canberra will see the HST travel 32 degrees above the northern horizon. While in Melbourne , the telescope drops to an altitude of 20 degrees and for Hobart it almost hugs the horizon, just reaching a height of 10 degrees. It'll also be fainter, about as bright as Epsilon Crucis , the faint fifth star of the Southern Cross.
So dark skies and good views of the northern horizon will be important considerations. By my rough calculations, Hubble's odometer is approaching almost 6 billion km, that's like travelling to the sun and back 20 times. The telescope truly is an engineering marvel, so why not give it a try and see the orbiting space observatory for yourself.
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By: Bob King November 10, This Week's Sky At a Glance. By: Alan MacRobert November 5, Sky Tour Astronomy Podcast. By: J. Kelly Beatty November 1, By: Alan MacRobert October 29, Explore the Night with Bob King. By: Bob King October 27, By: Alan MacRobert October 22, Imaging Foundations with Richard Wright.
By: Richard S. Wright Jr. You can listen to our podcast with the Kathryn Sullivan , who was part of the mission. The Hubble Space Telescope orbits kilometres miles above Earth and travels 8km 5 miles every second. Inclined The telescope has brought light to the causes of gamma-ray bursts, how planetary collisions work , the expansion of the Universe and even hidden dark matter.
The telescope is named in honour of Edwin Hubble , an astronomer who discovered many galaxies beyond our own using a telescope in California in the s. He is often credited as the man who confirmed the Universe is expanding, a finding that was announced in But very slowly: a report from September predicts a Hubble re-entry no earlier than
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