On the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Telescope first being launched into low earth orbit, TASCHEN brings together some of its most breathtaking deep space images.Hubble's orbit outside the Earth's atmosphere allows it to take extremely high-resolution images with almost no background light. Its acute observations have answered some of the most compelling questions of time and space, and simultaneously revealed whole new mysteries, like the strange "dark energy" that sees the universe expanding at an ever-accelerated rate. With investigations into everything from black holes to exoplanets, Hubble has changed not only the face of astronomy, but also our very sense of being in the universe.
This awe-inspiring collection celebrates Hubble's images both as scientific feats and as photographic masterpieces. In generous square format with several foldouts, these pictures of planets, galaxies, stars, nebulae, and beyond mesmerize in their iridescent colors, intricate textures, and forms at once fragile, vast, and elegant. An essay by photography critic Owen Edwards illuminates the pictures from a photographic perspective while an interview with Zoltan Levay explains how these images are composed. Veteran Hubble astronauts and leaders in the space community Charles F. Bolden, Jr. and John Mace Grunsfeld also offer their personal insights on Hubble's legacy and the future of space exploration.
Owen Edwards has written about photography for 30 years, for the American Photographer, New York Times Magazine, New York magazine, The Village Voice, Saturday Review, Vogue, Smithsonian magazine, and many other publications.
Zoltan Levay is Imaging Lead at the Space Telescope Science Institute. He works with astronomers and communicators world-wide to produce images and illustrations to publicize science results from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. He has produced many of Hubble's most widely reproduced images and has described the process of making colorful images from Hubble data in popular articles, talks, and interviews.
posted 02-04-2015 03:17 AM
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