The Faint Object Camera (FOC) was a camera installed on the Hubble Space Telescope from launch in 1990 until 2002. It was replaced by the Advanced Camera for Surveys.
The camera was built by Dornier GmbH and was funded by the European Space Agency. The unit actually consists of two complete and independent camera systems designed to provide extremely high resolution, exceeding 0.05 arcseconds. It is designed to view very faint UV light from 115 to 650 nanometers in wavelength.
The camera was designed to operate at low, medium, or high resolution. The angular resolution and field of view at each resolution were as follows:
| Angular resolution | Field of view | |
|---|---|---|
| Low resolution (f/48) | 0.043 arcseconds | 22 arcseconds |
| Medium resolution (f/96) | 0.022 arcseconds | 11 arcseconds |
| High resolution (f/288) | 0.0072 arcseconds | 3.6 arcseconds |
Famous quotes containing the words faint, object and/or camera:
“The gap between the committed and the indifferent is a Sahara whose faint trails, followed by the mind’s eye only, fade out in sand.”
—Nadine Gordimer (b. 1923)
“Your Englishman, confronted by something abnormal will always pretend that it isn’t there. If he can’t pretend that, he will look through the object, or round it, or above it or below it, or in any direction except into it. If, however, you force him to look into it, he will at once pretend that he sees the object not for what it is but for something that he would like it to be.”
—James Agate (1877–1947)
“If I were just curious, it would be very hard to say to someone, “I want to come to your house and have you talk to me and tell me the story of your life.” I mean people are going to say, “You’re crazy.” Plus they’re going to keep mighty guarded. But the camera is a kind of license. A lot of people, they want to be paid that much attention and that’s a reasonable kind of attention to be paid.”
—Diane Arbus (1923–1971)