Hubble and the Messier objects -

The Hubble Space Telescope and the Messier objects

The famous Hubble Space Telescope is certainly one of the most innovative

tools of the astronomers in this decade; the present author is just now

going to predict (and is convinced it deserves) that it might win the

title “Photographer of the Decade” for the 1990, as Voyager 2 was

nominated for the 1980. Its most spectacular results, together with an

open and intelligent public relations policy of the Space Telescope

Science Institute, has provided astronomers with a great flood of data

and high-quality images, and an outstanding popularity, especially as all

the material gets public domain two years after it was obtained.

The Hubble results have revolutionized the state of knowledge in virtually

any branch of astronomy — not that every good result comes from the HST,

but as these data are available publicly, they are used if ever possible;

from planets, comets, and asteroids to stars, clusters, nebulae, and

galaxies, every sort of objects in the sky was investigated, often

obtaining most revolutionary results.

Among the most outstanding achievements are observations of objects from

Messier’s catalog, as those are outstanding representatives of all types

of Deep-Sky objects. Because not every author has made his results

available to the public domain, we cannot present a comprehensive review

here at the moment. But we have tried to link into our catalog some of

the most interesting achievements.

There’s but one fact on the Hubble Telescope’s optics which must be kept

in mind: The Hubble telescope has a very long focal length of 190 feet (58 m),

and thus a one degree field measures one full meter in the space telescope’s

focal plain, and one arc minute about 1.7 cm. As its detectors are very much

smaller, their fields of view are actually small, so that only photos of small

portions of extended objects like most of Messier’s catalog can be obtained.

Moreover, the Hubble Space Telescope is not only an astronomical instrument

(though the telescope makes up its biggest part) but also a sophisticated

spacecraft. As a spacecraft, it has proven to be very reliable, and was

so well operated that the technological operations did virtually never concern

the scientific program.

Indeed, Hubble is one of the more important in a considerably long list of

orbiting telescopes,

or astronomy satellites.

Here’s a list of links to the Hubble observations of Messier objects we

could collect with our pages:

M1:
Jeff Hester and

Paul Scowen of the

Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, have obtained

gorgeous images of the Crab Nebula

with the Hubble Space Telescope. These images have been reproduced

previously in Sky and Telescope of January 1995, and have provided

some new and significant insight into the internal processes of this

supernova remnant. Some views of fine detail

have been extracted, which are e.g. suitable for computer screen background.

On May 30, 1996, new studies of the same

authors have provided some new insight into the dynamics and changes of the

Crab nebula and its pulsar.
M4:
White dwarfs (September 1995)
M8:
Hubble Views the Hourglass Nebula in M8

(January 1997)
M15:
Dense Core of the globular cluster,

similar to active galactic nuclei (November 1995)
M16: Gas Pillars and Evaporating
Gaseous Globules in the Eagle Nebula

(November 1995);

screen sized crops
M31: Discovery of the Andromeda Galaxy’s
double nucleus (1993).

Investigation of M31’s brightest

globular cluster, G1 (1996).
M33: Discovery of the hot young giant stars
which excite the huge

emission nebula NGC 595 in M33 to shine.

The giant diffuse nebula NGC 604 in M33

has been photographed with the HST, resolving about 200 hot young massive

stars.
M42:
early pre-repair photos (1993),

Proplyd discovery photos (June 1994),

Mosaic and closeups (November 1995),

Trapezium cluster and Proplyds (January 1997)

OMC 1 molecular cloud (NIC, May 1997)
M51:
Hubble photos of M51, especially of its core

(“X” or “y” structure in the core of M51) have been taken before and after its

repair in December 1993 by the crew of the Space Shuttle mission STS-61.

The HST also recorded

Supernova 1994I in M51.
M57:
HST image of M57;

Oct 98 HST image.
M64:
IR image of M64 central region taken by

Nicmos-3 (PR 99-10 from March 18, 1999)
M77:
The active nucleus of this

Seyfert II galaxy was revealed by the HST early after its refurbishment

in December 1993.
M80:
Gorgeous image of M80 from the Hubble

Heritage Project, showing various types of stars including Blue Stragglers.

July 1999.
M84:
A massive central object in M84 was

detected in the heart of this Virgo Cluster lenticular when in early 1997

the newly installed Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) was used

to investigate this galaxy.
M87:
The “Smoking Gun” (June 1994),

M87’s active nucleus, surrounded by an accretion disk.

In addition, R. Mark Elowitz

has provided a well-processed HST image of

M87’s jet.

Finally, we have an older (pre-repair)

image of M87 and its jet.
M96:
Nial R. Tanvir used the HST to detect and investigate Cepheid variables

in this galaxy. HST image of M96
M100:
This grand-design spiral was among the first objects

photographed after the HST refurbishment

by the crew of the Shutle mission STS-61 in December 1993.

Moreover, this galaxy is the home of the first

Cepheid variables discovered

in the Virgo cluster of galaxies, giving a distance

of 50-60 million light years, and a Hubble constant of 80+/-17.

However, with the refinement of the distance scale by ESA’s astrometric

Hipparcos satellite, this value must be refined by about 10 percent, and

current estimates for H0 are closer to 67+/-7.
M105:
Central Massive Dark Object (January 1997)

We know of more good Hubble results concerning Messier objects.

They are listed below, and we would like to get images and more

information for inclusion here:

M81: The distance of M81 was determined
from early HST observations of Cepheid variables. Are these reports, and

possibly images/data, available online somewhere ?
M95 was a target within the

key project of searching for Cepheid variables in neighboring galaxies.

We are still looking for Hubble images of this galaxy though.
M101: The distance of M101 has been
determined as 24 million light years, again with Cepheids.

A HST image of M101 was in a recent issue of Astronomy magazine.