The Faint Object Camera (FOC) was a

camera A camera is an optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), with a ...

installed on the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ver ...

from launch in 1990 until 2002. It was replaced by the

Advanced Camera for Surveys The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) is a third-generation axial instrument aboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The initial design and scientific capabilities of ACS were defined by a team based at Johns Hopkins University. ACS was assembl ...

. In December 1993, Hubble's vision was corrected on STS-61 by installing COSTARS, which corrected the problem with Hubble's mirror before it reached an instrument like FOC. Later instruments had this correction built in, which is why it was possible to later remove COSTARS itself and replace it with a new science instrument. The camera was built by Dornier GmbH and was funded by the

European Space Agency , owners = , headquarters = Paris, Île-de-France, France , coordinates = , spaceport = Guiana Space Centre , seal = File:ESA emblem seal.png , seal_size = 130px , image = Views in the Main Control Room (120 ...

. The unit actually consists of two complete and independent camera systems designed to provide extremely high resolution, exceeding 0.05

arcsecond A minute of arc, arcminute (arcmin), arc minute, or minute arc, denoted by the symbol , is a unit of angular measurement equal to of one degree. Since one degree is of a turn (or complete rotation), one minute of arc is of a turn. The na ...

s. It is designed to view very faint UV and optical light from 115 to 650 nanometers in wavelength., page 40. A 40 MB PDF file. FOC has been compared to a "telephoto" lens, providing a high resolution in a small field of view.FOC
. FOC could distinguish between two points 0.05 arc-seconds apart. Rather than CCDs the FOC used

photon A photon () is an elementary particle that is a quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are Massless particle, massless ...

-counting digicons as its detector. The camera was designed to operate at low, medium, or high resolution. The angular resolution and field of view at each resolution were as follows:

Imaging examples

Space work

References

External links

First FOC image

Images of Nova Cygni 1992 With Hubble's Old and New Optics

Hubble Space Telescope instruments Space imagers Space hardware returned to Earth intact European Space Agency {{observatory-stub