If the Hubbell telescope is so good, why can't they focus it on Mars, or Saturn?

Answer 1

They can and they have! See this site
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/solar_system_collection/
for lots of pretty pictures Hubble has taken over the years of objects in our Solar System. Many of them are absolutely breathtaking! I've got several of them that rotate as my desktop background image.

Answer 2

It's precisely because Hubbell is so good that it can't take good pictures close up. The field (of view) is too small. The problem is not so much Hubbell's ability to focus as the speed of the planets. They blur.

It's comparable to taking a picture of a flower next to the road while driving by at 35 miles per hour. If you get it at all, the results won't be very good. But if you focus on the tree 100 feet away, you won't have any problem. Hubble can't shoot the sidewalk, but it's great with the mountains.

Answer 3

What would be the point? We've had spacecraft orbiting those two planets, taking pictures from a helluva lot closer than the Hubble is. Mars even has a couple of rovers on it sending back pictures from the surface.

Hubble concentrates on deep-space objects, where nothing else can even come close to the quality of pictures it takes.

Answer 4

Actually the Hubel telescope is getting aged. They expect to retire the Hubble very soon. They have already repaired the mirrors several times. They have or will be launching a much better telescope in the next few years.

Answer 5

The hubble is designed primarily for super deep space viewing, but they can and have and do focus it on Saturn and Mars. What makes you think otherwise?

Answer 6

Mars from Hubble:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030827.html

There is even an animation of Saturn done using Hubble images (in 1990), available through:
http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/saturn/anim1.html

Answer 7

Because of its ability for capturing images from very very faint
amounts of light coming from distant parts of the universe,

If they turned the Hubble Space Telescope and aimed it at a
nearby planet, relative to the distant galaxys, the amount of light
refected from the nearby planets would burn out the camera
parts of the telescope.

It would be like if you were to stare at the sun .

Answer 8

They occasionally do but its hardly necessary since there are advanced orbiters at both planets taking thousands of fantastic pictures.

Answer 9

uh... they could. It's just, there isn't a lot you can tell from simply looking at something that we don't already know. That's why they send shuttles and the like that are equipped with tools to examine the planets

Answer 10

All optical scopes have certain limitations. Although they do focus it on distant planets, it can only do so much.