

The main effect of the spherical aberration problems with the
primary mirror was to drive the computer engineers to develop the image
processing software that much faster. When they use the _same_ deconvolution 
software on the images from the fixed Hubble, be ready for some 
incredible results!  There is every reason to believe that the results will 
_exceed_ the original specs by a fair margin.  

Adaptive optics is a combination of hardware and software.  It works 
realtime, not after the fact, as is the case with Hubble.  You might be
interested to know this technology has made it to the amateur market, in
the form of the AO-2 Adaptive Optics System.  Starting on page 52 of the 
April, 1993 Sky & Telescope is a three page review of this new product.
It lists for $1,290.  The article states: "The AO-2 Adaptive Optics System 
comes in a handy soft-plastic case that a three-year-old could carry 
around."  Even though this device is really only good for the brightest
objects, "it could cope with image movements of up to 0.8 millimeter
in the telescope's focal plane."  Now just imagine how well this infant 
technology will do in a few years, especially in a dedicated system that 
has hundreds of thousands of dollars, and many man-hours invested in its
development.

George Krumins