PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011

PHOTO CAPTION                                    January 13, 1994

This comparison image of the core of the galaxy M100 shows the
dramatic improvement in the Hubble Space Telescope's view of the
universe.  The new image, taken with the second-generation Wide
field and Planetary Camera (WFPC-II) installed during the STS-61
Hubble servicing mission, demonstrates that the camera's
corrective optics compensate fully for optical aberration in
Hubble's primary mirror.  With the new camera, the Hubble will
probe the universe with unprecedented clarity and sensitivity,
and fulfill its most important scientific objectives for which
the telescope was originally built.

At right is the core of the grand design spiral galaxy M100, as
imaged by WFPC-II in its high-resolution channel.  WFPC-II's
modified optics correct for Hubble's previously blurry vision,
allowing the telescope for the first time to cleanly resolve
faint structure as small as 30 light-years across in a galaxy
tens of millions of light-years away.  The image was taken on
December 31, 1993.

For comparison, at left is a picture taken with the WFPC-I camera
in wide-field mode on November 27, 1993, just a few days before
the STS-61 servicing mission.  The effects of optical aberration
in the telescope's 2.4-meter primary mirror blur starlight, smear
out fine detail and limit the telescope's ability to see faint
structure.

Both Hubble images are "raw"; they have not been processed using
computer image reconstruction techniques that improved aberrated
images made before the servicing mission.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory developed the Wide Field and
Planetary Camera-II for NASA's Office of Space Science.

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