Hubble: A Journey Through Space and Time Author: Edward J. Weiler Publisher: Abrams ISBN: 978-0-8109-8997-9 Price: £19.99 (Hb), 143pp
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This book describes itself on the dust jacket as “an authoritative account of the observatory that has revolutionized astronomy and photography in our time”. Good I thought to myself because there are quite enough coffee table books about the Hubble space telescope that are little more than a collection of attractive pictures.

After a promising foreword by Charles F Bolden Jr, NASA Administrator, the author informs us that after completing his PhD at Northwestern University he went to work at Princeton University as a young researcher. There Lyman Spitzer became his boss, who proposed an orbiting observatory as far back as 1946 and devoted much of his time in pursuit of that goal. “I often deeply reflect on my personal and professional relationship with the man who shall forever be remembered as the father of Hubble” states Weiler. Once the author was hired by NASA in 1978 he never imagined that he would become Hubble’s chief scientist for 20 years.

After a brief history of the telescope and an outline of its instruments we are indulged in some glorious pictures of the solar system. There are chapters on stars, interstellar clouds and galaxies before the book devotes a final section to servicing Hubble in orbit which I was pleased to see, accompanied by some excellent pictures of the telescope and astronauts in Earth orbit. When discussing the problem of the faulty mirror, the author says “If you had asked me to give you my biggest worries of a possible Hubble problem, this would not have been on my list”. This is a well presented book but I was a little disappointed by the text. I wanted to know how these pictures had advanced our knowledge of science, what we knew before Hubble and what we know now. Sometimes the book helped me, often it did not. Sadly this was far from the authoritative or in depth account that I had hoped for. Good for beginners but it is another coffee table book.

Robin Flegg