Title: Galaxy M-100

Source: Hubble Space Telescope

Information: This comparison image of the core of the galaxy M100 shows the dramatic improvement in Hubble Space Telescope's view of the universe. The new image, taken with Jet Propulsion Laboratory's second generation Wide-Field and Planetary Camera-II after it was installed during the STS-61 Hubble servicing mission, beautifully demonstrates the camera's ability to compensate fully for the optical aberration in Hubble's primary mirror with corrective optics. With the new camera, the Hubble Space Telescope will probe the universe with unprecedented clarity and sensitivity, and fulfill the most important scientific objectives for which it was built. 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 structures 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. This Hubble images is "raw", or unprocessed; it has not been processed using computer image reconstruction techniques that improved aberrated images made before the servicing mission. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed and built both the original Wide-Field and Planetary Camera-I and the second generation Wide-Field and Planetary Camera-II for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C.