The 25th anniversary of the Hubble telescope is coming up in April. In honor of this, 3 engineers from the Hubble group participated in a Google chat explaining a bit about how the telescope is operated. (Photo : NASA)

Almost 25 years ago, scientists at NASA launched the Hubble telescope into space. April 24, 2015 will be the 25th anniversary of the historic Hubble telescope, which was the initially telescope ever to remain in orbit in space. Yesterday, on November 13, Tony Darnell and Scott Lewis hosted a live Google hangout session with 3 engineers and scientists who function at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, exactly where the Hubble telescope's ground controls are based, to discover a bit about how the Hubble telescope operates. These scientists perform with the Hubble telescope every day, and have some awesome insights into the mechanics of the telescope.

Operating a space telescope from Earth is no doubt a complex job, and is most likely a practice in patience. One particular issue that the Hubble telescope engineers face is how to block out stray light, maintaining the telescope focused. The engineers have a mirror that they can handle remotely from the ground at the Goddard Space Flight Center, so if a scientist who is employing the telescope for a investigation project says that the telescope is not adequately focused, they can adjust the mirror till it's in concentrate once again.

Moving the telescope can be tedious. Hubble moves very slowly, at about the speed of the minute hand on a clock, stated Mike Wenz, the lead of the Hubble telescope's Optical Assembly.

"For us to do a 90 degree turn, it takes us about 15 minutes," Wenz stated.

Morgan Van Arsdall, who is on the systems management team, mentioned that each and every week the Hubble team comes up with a schedule for the telescope's location, based on what they want it to appear at. They then load that info onto the computers. One of the computer systems they are functioning on is an old Intel 486, a model which IBM stopped making in 2007.

"Is there an AOL disc in there?" a single of the hosts, Scott Lewis, asked, jokingly.

One more exciting issue the scientists revealed is that, on a day-to-day basis, no a single is monitoring the telescope. The telescope employed to be fully staffed by a team of five, but a few years ago NASA switched to an automated system that monitors the telemetry and other set standards. If anything goes incorrect, the program will send a text message to a single of the folks on the Hubble group, and they'll come in.

The Hubble Space Telescope was sent into low Earth orbit in 1990 and can visualize near ultraviolet, visible, and close to infrared spectra. The telescope has been the supply of numerous astronomical observations and discoveries.

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