1995: Robert Williams Peers into Deep Space

Image of Robert Williams. Courtesy of the Space Telescope Science Institute.

Imagine that you have the opportunity to point the Hubble Space Telescope anywhere you want. What would you choose to look at with the most amazing instrument ever built for astronomy? Principal Investigator Robert Williams, Director of the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute, chose a most surprising target—nothing at all. That is, a place in space that had no planets or stars or visible galaxies.  The quietest, darkest place he could find, to focus the power of this telescope for 11.3 days of valuable observing time.  He was rewarded with an image of thousands of galaxies!  The Hubble Deep Field image has become one of the most remarkable findings of the space age, and has again vastly expanded our vision of the cosmos.