What will the magnification of hubble after the repair?

Question

What will the magnification of hubble after the repair?

Answer 1

Telescopes don't magnify they collect light, the bigger the mirror the more light they can collect Hubble's mirror is 2.4 m (94 in).

Within weeks of the launch of the telescope, the images returned showed that there was a serious problem with the optical system. Although the first images appeared to be sharper than ground-based images, the telescope failed to achieve a final sharp focus, and the best image quality obtained was drastically lower than expected. Images of point sources spread out over a radius of more than one arcsecond, instead of having a point spread function concentrated within a circle 0.1 arcsec in diameter as had been specified in the design criteria. The detailed performance is shown in graphs from STScI illustrating the mis-figured PSFs compared to post-correction and ground based PSFs.

Analysis of the flawed images showed that the cause of the problem was that the primary mirror had been ground to the wrong shape. Although it was probably the most precisely figured mirror ever made, with variations from the prescribed curve of no more than 1/65 of the wavelength of visible light, it was too flat at the edges. The mirror was barely 2.3 micrometres out from the required shape, but the difference was catastrophic, introducing severe spherical aberration, a flaw in which light reflecting off the edge of a mirror focuses on a different point from the light reflecting off its center.

The effect of the mirror flaw on scientific observations depended on the particular observation—the core of the aberrated PSF was sharp enough to permit uniquely high-resolution observations of bright objects, and spectroscopy was largely unaffected. However, the loss of light to the large, out of focus halo severely reduced the usefulness of the telescope for faint objects or high contrast imaging. This meant that nearly all of the cosmological programs were essentially impossible since they required observation of exceptionally faint objects.

The 11-day STS-125 mission by Atlantis, scheduled for launch on 8 October 2008, will install fresh batteries, replace all gyroscopes, and install Wide Field Camera 3 and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph.

Answer 2

The same as before the repair -- the repair did not change the "magnification".  The Hubble Space Telescope has a resolving power of 0.1 arcseconds, about 1000 times better than the human eye.  For example, the human eye can see things about 200 km across on the Moon (just barely), while the Hubble can see things 200 meters across on the Moon.  That's for white things on a black background.

Answer 3

Magnification is not most important thing about a telescope, even for the Hubble Space Telescope.  One of the great cameras, the Advance Camera for Surveys, is due to be repaired on orbit.  If this is repaired, then we'll get a few more years of really sharp images like those in the first link.  The workhorse camera, the wide field and planetary camera 2 WFPC2, will be removed, and another camera will take it's place.  The WFPC2 is the HST's best resolution camera at the moment.

NASA has a web site with lots of information on the upcoming servicing.

I met one of the astronauts, Andrew Feustel who has trained for this mission, and was picked last fall.

One could say that the Spirit and Opportunity rovers have the highest magnification of any instrument ever produced.  They have cameras on the end of their arms.  They can resolve details as small as a tenth of a millimeter on Mars. If you are sitting in the control room on Earth, the effective magnification is enormous.