In 1998, astronomers repeated their experiment capturing the Hubble Deep Field, this time in the southern sky. Hubble was trained on a region in the constellation Tucana, near the South Celestial Pole.
Since the universe should look the same in any direction, the Hubble Deep Field South should have a galaxy field similar to that of the original Hubble Deep Field. After 10 days of observations, Hubble confirmed that proposition by returning a keyhole view of myriad galaxies stretching back 12 billion light-years.
In selecting the Hubble Deep Field South, astronomers were unable to avoid all stars, so some foreground stars show up in this image. They bear the telltale spiked appearance caused by light diffracting or bending around the support structure of the telescope's secondary mirror.
Credit: R. Williams (STScI), the Hubble Deep Field South Team, and NASA
For more information, visit:
hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/1998/news-1998-41.html
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