May/June 1999

Ring Nebula

To overcome the barriers, I proposed a program that would give priority to producing the best possible images from Hubble. We would search the archive for hidden gems and plan new observations of familiar objects. We would produce one new image a month. We would give astronomers space to tell their stories and the public the opportunity to help select new observations. Together with colleagues Anne Kinney and Howard Bond, I approached then-director Bob Williams with our vision. He said yes and the Hubble Heritage Project was born.

Two years later, the Hubble Heritage Project is thriving. We have released nine new images and have others in the wings. We have produced our first new observation, a three-color mosaic of the Ring Nebula, and have just completed our first public vote in which more than 8,000 people selected the polar ring galaxy NGC 4650A as the object we will observe in April 1999. In its first seven weeks, the Heritage program web site logged 17 million hits.

NGC 253

Posters and slides are being offered for sale to the public. Glossies hang on bulletin boards and doors throughout our building. And somewhere, perhaps, one of these images will hang in a classroom or be tacked on a bedroom wall, and inspire curiosity and a zest for exploration, a sense of the vastness of the universe and the wonders awaiting those with a will to learn. It is this inspiration that will be the best and most valuable heritage of Hubble.

Keith S. Noll is the principal investigator for the Hubble Heritage Project.

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