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1. Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 20-May-2024 13:58:00 UTC Robert McNees

   Speaking of, the Hubble Space Telescope sent its first image back to Earth #OTD in 1990.

   Folks knew right away that something was wrong with the optics, but the problem was eventually corrected.

   Ground Image: E. Persson (Las Campanas Observatory, Chile)/Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington
   Hubble Image: NASA, ESA, and STScI
   https://mastodon.social/@mcnees/110378772317401238

   • Robert McNees (mcnees@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 20-May-2024 14:06:09 UTC Robert McNees

     in reply to

     • Paul Guinnessy

     @Guinnessy I'd never heard this! My college astrophysics professor led the corrective optics project.

   • Paul Guinnessy (guinnessy@mastodon.world)'s status on Monday, 20-May-2024 14:06:10 UTC Paul Guinnessy

     in reply to

     @mcnees I knew one of the engineers at Kodak whose group built the backup mirror. He's still smug that their mirror didn't have this problem (I still don't understand how it was missed in the prep work, as it's not like they couldn't swap it out).

   • Paul Guinnessy (guinnessy@mastodon.world)'s status on Monday, 20-May-2024 15:28:30 UTC Paul Guinnessy

     in reply to

     @mcnees Benjamin Snavely (now deceased) was the one who told me about it. You used to be able to see the spare mirror at the Air & Space museum. The Kodak group were a tad annoyed it wasn't their's going up.

     https://www.llnl.gov/community-education/employee-retirement-resources/in-memoriam/benjamin-b-snavely