hubble in 3D!

at the american astronomical society meeting last week, i watched astronaut john grunsfeld talk about his experiences during his recent mission to repair the hubble space telescope. he shared personal stories about the other astronauts on the mission, videos they took in flight, emotions he felt during the ups and downs of the mission, and general impressions of the functionality of the new and improved hubble! at the end, the (maybe 3000?) astronomers in the room gave him a much-deserved standing ovation (which i have rarely ever seen from astronomers).


an interesting piece of information shared by grunsfeld (at the right of the image above) is that the pilot of the hubble repair mission, scott altman (center in the image above), was the pilot double for tom cruise's character in the film top gun! he earned a whopping $23 per day for his efforts, but it was his middle finger shown during the infamous upside down air scene.

with all the hoopla surrounding the potential for 3D movies, thanks to the recent release of the film avatar (which i thoroughly enjoyed), i wanted to give you enough time to get excited about a film i'm certainly looking forward to seeing: hubble IMAX 3D!

the crew of STS-125 carried an IMAX camera aboard in order to film the entire 12 day mission for the movie! the film will open in march 2010 and will "chronicle the life story of the hubble space telescope." astronomers used the hubble to capture all the images in the montage below!


another random bit of info about the film - it will be narrated by leonardo dicaprio, seen here recording for the movie in a photo i got via bob jacobs.