Hubble image takes gazers to sun and back.

Byline: Jim Feehan The Register-Guard

The unveiling of a never-before-seen image of the Helix nebula on Saturday was like looking at a Rorschach test.

Ask a dozen people what they saw, and you got a dozen responses, much like viewing the famous ink blot test used to analyze personality.

"It looks like the eye of God," Myrna Little of Eugene said.

Indeed it does, assuming God has irises the color of the South Pacific that turn azure at the edges before becoming an explosion of brilliant deep orange where the whites of the eyes would be.

Darrell Fletcher, 16, of Eugene, was impressed with the image's colors, which were more vibrant than any he'd ever seen in a space image.

"You don't see reds and blues like that," he said. "It would be real cool to have that image painted on a ceiling."

The image taken from the Hubble Space Telescope was of Helix, the nearest planetary nebula to the sun.

It was the highlight of several activities surrounding the Eugene Astronomical Society's annual Astronomy Day at North Eugene High School.

The image provided by the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore was presented to about two dozen Astronomy Day events across the United States on Saturday.

The Hubble spacecraft, in orbit for 13 years, has boosted interest in astronomy with its stunning photographs of planets, moons and galaxies.

The size of a large school bus, the Hubble whirls around the Earth at five miles per second. If a car moved that fast, a coast-to-coast trip across the continental United States would take only 10 minutes.

At an altitude of 380 miles from Earth the Hubble Space Telescope is able to measure celestial bodies, something astronomers were unable to do before the telescopes launched, said Jean Grendler, president of the Eugene Astronomy Society.

"The beauty of this event is it brings the wonder of the cosmos to the community, as opposed to the community going to a planetarium or distant observatory," she said.

Also on exhibit were displays of meteorites, NASA space gear and rocket launch demonstrations. Other activities included lectures on the life cycle of the sun, possibility of life beyond Earth and tips on how to view Mars - which in August will be at its closest proximity to Earth in centuries.

CAPTION(S):

This image of Helix, the nearest planetary nebula to the sun, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. To view more images on the Internet, go to www.hubble site.org/newscenter/.