Pointing Hubble

Contents

0: Introduction.
1: Usage.
2: Limitations.
3: Credits.
4: Copyright and License.

A.0: Appendices.

A.1: Signature.
A.2: Admonishment.
A.3: Disclaimer.


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See also:
• Selden's List of Resources for Celestia

0.0 Introduction.

• http://www.lepp.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/files/pointing_hubble_v07.zip (100KB, 6 July 2007)

  This preliminary version 0.7 of this Addon is for Celestia v1.5.0 prerelease 3 or later.

  It provides a script which you can use to point Celestia's model of the Hubble Space Telescope toward any of Celestia's objects.

  The field of view image represents what can be seen by the HST, as described in http://www.stsci.edu/hst/proposing/documents/cp/primer.pdf.

  If you restore this Zip file into Celestia's Extras directory, it should recreate all of the directories and files necessary for it to work with Celestia v1.5.0 or later.

Hubble's field of view

Celestia showing Hubble's orientation in 4 views

1.0 Usage.

• This Addon provides an SSC catalog which invokes a ScriptedRotation function. The function updates the orientation of the Hubble telescope model while Celestia is running so that it points toward the currently selected object. The function displays warnings if the selected object is behind the Earth from the Hubble's point of view, or if the HST is pointing dangerously near the Sun. These warnings can be turned off by providing an appropriate parameter value to the ScriptedRotation in the SSC catalog.

• Point_Hubble_v07.celx
  is a script which will place your viewpoint where you can see Hubble's field of view. It optionally creates several smaller views to display Hubble's orientation in more detail:
  • a wide-angle view of the target area,
  • the orientaiton of the telescope in ecliptic coordinates, and
  • the telescope's ground-track.
  After running the script, Select the object(s) you want to observe.

  After running this script, to point Celestia's model of the Hubble Space Telescope toward an object, simply "Select" that target within Celestia. You can use any of Celestia's selection methods. I find it easiest to use the textual format. I.e. type
  [return]
  name of object
  [return]

  One can then type these keyboard commands:
  shift-A to rotate the view clockwise, changing the Hubble's FOV orientation
  shift-B to rotate the view counter-clockwise
  shift-X to stop the rotation
  ? to redisplay this help message

  Typing A or B multiple times increases the rotation speed. Typing B after A does not reverse the direction, instead it slows the rotation proportionally.

• To manually view the remote object as the Hubble Space Telescope would, the procedure is to
  GoTo "hubble-pov",
  Track "hubble-fov"
  increase the magnification until the sensor outlines are visible then select the desired target

  Read the source code of the scripts and the ScriptedOrientation for more information.

2.0 Limitations