January 27, 1995 Contact: Pamela Donegan or Robert Irion (408/459-2495)

SANDRA FABER TO LECTURE ON HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SANTA CRUZ, CA--On Thursday, February 16, renowned UC Santa Cruz astronomer Sandra Faber will take listeners on a journey to the Hubble Space Telescope, as she recounts personal experiences of the instrument's design, vision problems, and the mission to repair it. Her talk, entitled "The Hubble Space Telescope: Back From the Dead," will begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Veteran's Memorial Building, 846 Front Street, Santa Cruz. Admission is free.

Faber, a member of Space Telescope's wide field planetary camera team, has been with the project from its start. She was one of three astronomers who initially diagnosed the flaw in the telescope's main mirror, and she served on the panel that directed repairs. Following the panel's recommendation, astronauts installed a series of corrective lenses in December 1993, restoring the Hubble's focus.

During her lecture, Faber plans to give an eyewitness account of the telescope project and its major astronomical contributions, explain how the Hubble got into trouble, and show slides of astronomical objects both before and after the repair mission. "The new photos are fantastic," she says. "It's like night and day."

Faber is a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC and an astronomer at UCO/Lick Observatory. She is a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She joined the UCSC faculty in 1972.

Seats at Faber's lecture will be available on a first-come, first-served basis only. The Friends of the UCSC Library and the Friends of the Santa Cruz Public Library are cosponsoring the event. For more information, call Margaret Gordon at the UCSC Library, 459-4211.

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