New Horizons' Telescope Sees First Light

[Fraser]

Although New Horizons is still more than 9 years away from reaching Pluto, it's ready to do some science along the way. The spacecraft passed an important milestone this week when it opened the protective cover on its Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) and took a photograph of the Messier 7 star cluster. Stars were visible in this cluster down to 12th magnitude, which matches the instrument's pre-launch calibration. New Horizons will start imaging Jupiter with LORRI as it approaches a Feb. 28, 2007 flyby.

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[George]

Looks like things are going right.

[Bojan]

Hmmm... it seems the optical quality of this instrument is not that great... all star images have the same ray-like (difraction?) pattern, almost as if the lens (or mirror) is stressed, or obstructed with something....

[George]

Yes, I should have enlarged it. Yet, it appears it meets their expectation. Perhaps processing comes later.