Xref: utzoo sci.space.shuttle:2903 sci.space:10874 Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!noao!stsci!berry From: berry@stsci.EDU (Jim Berry) Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle,sci.space Subject: Re: Hubble Space Telescope Message-ID: <499@stsci.edu> Date: 7 Apr 89 22:05:25 GMT References: <1343@hudson.acc.virginia.edu> Organization: Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD 21218 Lines: 35 From article <1343@hudson.acc.virginia.edu>, by gsh7w@astsun1.acc.Virginia.EDU (Greg Hennessy): > In article (Philip Verdieck) writes: > # > #What are the capabilities for rotating this baby and using it for > #spying purposes??? > Not much, since the detectors are sensitive enough to burn out. A > KH-11 or KH-12 will do the job for you though. Funny how we seem to go through this every six months or so. In general, the instruments on board will not 'burn out' if they get pointed at the Earth, although I don't think that either the Faint Object Camera or the Faint Object Spectrograph would fare very well... In fact, the current method for flat-fielding the Wide Field/Planetary Camera is to take several 'smears' of the cloud covered Earth at different angles as it goes by under the telescope, trying to get a flat gray. A couple people have toyed around with linear deblurring algorithms, but just for fun, though. HST simply isn't equipped to take pretty pictures of Grandma's House. Put the right gadgets onto an HST frame and you get a KH-12. They use us to test all of the equipment before they use it on the KH-12 - I think that's why nobody ever got upset about us sitting around at Lockheed taking up space - people were getting experience handling a "KH-12". - Jim -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jim Berry | UUCP:{arizona,decvax,hao}!noao!stsci!berry Space Telescope Science Institute | ARPA: berry@stsci.edu Baltimore, Md. 21218 | SPAM: SCIVAX::BERRY, KEPLER::BERRY