An interesting thought came to mind and Im still trying to figure out the dynamics of images taken with the telescope. For example, the hubble is not stationary, it is orbiting the earth once every 93 or so minutes. Which brings me to my point..How are they taking images with long exposure times? A long exposure time is needed to gather all the possible light so that you may see very distant and faint objects, also so that the image is clear. Im really still curious about the process they do this, I know that for a certain orbit and camera angle the Earth would not block the view, but this is only for a certain section of space and special orbit. To clairfy that, imagine the hubble orbiting constant at the equator and its point of view aimed directly north into space, or directly south into space (perpedicular to the Earth, or rather a 90 degree right angle to the equator).

Now for any other angles your going to get the Earth in the way on one side of the orbit. So what they do is, take one image per orbit then combine those. Read quoted. It should be noted though that the orbit of the hubble is not stationary, its curved in a wave type motion. As are most satalites. With that in mind, you can have greater flexability.

"In an important press release this week, deep, exquisite images from the HST Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) permitted a detailed dating of the range of stellar ages in the halo of the nearby Andromeda galaxy. The final ACS image resulting from 120 orbits of observation is the deepest optical image ever taken, registering over 300,000 halo stars in the single ACS field of view."

So I take notice whenever I read sentences such as "image taken over a 10 day exposure" because thats not really what it is unless they are using the method and angle described firstly above. How these multiple images combine for greater clarity I have no idea, I wouldnt think so...but if they say it works then... Any case it sounds like a fake or false exposure to me.

Something else came to mind. You know the blurred effect you get when you take a picture that is moving? And that doesnt matter which body is moving, the observed, or the observer. Im wondering to what degree that happens with the hubble. I mean were talking somewhere around 28,200 km/h or 17,500 mph. It all has to do with technology of optics involved and hubble's is state of the art so the effect is reduced and dont forget distances, for greater distances the effect is reduced, but still to what degree?

Ideally if you could send out a telescope into space rather than orbit something, and make sure its velocity is relatively still, then in theory you would see images much clearer. Not only that you could take true to the word exposures over many hours or even days. But the problem now is, you cant see space to the other side of the Earth or whathave you. So NASA trades clarity for flexability, and dont forget maintenence. Hubble wont come home it's too big, it will eventually de-orbit and crash to Earth, I say send it out at the end(if possible) and see what you get.

One other thing to consider the benifits of a close orbit to Earth. Light from the Sun is blocked a great deal close to Earth, this provides the best conditions for observation. Their is however a cone of shadow that the Earth projects into space, much like the moon does during a total eclipse. Theres actually 2 distinct shadow variants to an eclipse, a lighter one that would cover a great deal of the Earth, and another point more focused and much darker some few miles(not sure) accross. Whether the intensity of this cone shadow is constant from point to source Im not sure, but in any case the Earth does cast one to space and if your going to have a telescope in space it should be in this cone. So my idea is, send the telescope out past a required Earth orbit yet still within this cone and give it an orbit that of Earth around the Sun instead of the current orbit around the Earth which gives it a much greater velocity.