alalaladede

alalaladede t1_iqqv4rb wrote

When Hubble was deployed I was in University studying physics, and I can say for sure that we were all highly impressed by the first images, even if they weren't perfect because of the faulty mirror problem. The public hype was not quite as big as it was with the JWST, AFAIR, but never the less it was a major news event.

This is not to say however, that there hadn't been similarily impressive images of astronomic objects before Hubble. After all there had been extremely powerful ground based instruments for decades before its launch, and quite a number of publications that showed off their results.

A good example would be Timothy Ferris' book GALAXIES from 1988. Just google it and you will find the best examples of what was doable with ground based telescopes and analog photography. I am sure you will be impressed both by those pre Hubble images and also by the improvements Hubble brought us.

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