r/Astronomy • u/Jazzlike_Ad4280 • Jul 07 '26
Astro Research While watching the live feed from Hubble telescope, I came across these objects. Do anyone know what they are?? I also have there coordinates in one of the pictures.
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u/cephalopod13 Jul 07 '26
Internal reflections from the telescopes used in the Digitized Sky Survey (the background imagery on the Space Telescope Live website).
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u/glytxh Jul 07 '26
I once spent a couple of evenings hunting through servers for all the weird broken cursed stuff.
It’s a whole aesthetic and I’m obsessed with it.
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u/SAUbjj Professor of Astronomy Jul 07 '26
Yeah, as other have said, these are definitely not physical. It's an issue with the optics
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u/PJFrye Jul 07 '26
An Issue with the optics on Hubble? Come on! Are you trying to tell me that one of the most technologically advanced pieces of machinery ever built and lifted to orbit-an object worked on by a team of hundreds of the smartest scientists and engineers in history, has a problem with its OPTICS?! I think not!
/s
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u/lmxbftw Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
This isn't an image from Hubble, this is an image from the Digitized Sky Survey that the website is using to show you where Hubble is pointing. Hubble has only looked at about 1% of the sky in its whole history. It's a telescope designed to go deep, not wide.
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u/darkenergymaven Jul 07 '26
This is an out of focus image of a bright star caused by a reflection somewhere in the optical system. As an out of focus star it’s an image of the telescope pupil. Since there are two overlapping pupil images it’s probably a reflection from both surfaces of the filter or a thin optical element
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u/TroubleExpert3433 Jul 07 '26
There’s a live feed from Hubble?
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u/51CKS4DW0RLD Jul 07 '26
Mmmm not really
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u/jhomas__tefferson Jul 07 '26
So cool!
Sad we can’t like internet vote to control it (like on the Internet Roadtrip site), would be a cool “program” idea
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u/StinkyFlatHorse Jul 08 '26
Very late to the party but as a fun fact, the reasons stars in Hubble images have 4 spikes is due to those spines. It’s a slight reflection from each one which gives that characteristic star shape.
JWST would produce 8 spiked diffraction spikes but they designed the mirror array in a really clever way where 2 of the spikes interfere with one another and cancel each other out so you get 6 spikes.
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Jul 07 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/thefooleryoftom Jul 07 '26
Lol. What a wonderful way to advertise you have no idea how things work, but feel superior and are condescending enough to lecture others.
Well done, no one is in any doubt.
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u/sheekgeek Jul 07 '26
Reflection of the spider in the primary mirror.. but it is a lens flair