Steven Hawley Signed NASA Hubble Photo — NGC 4261 Black Hole, STS-31 Deployer View Watchlist >
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Lot # Nasa53E
System ID # 29530776
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Steven Hawley Signed NASA Hubble Photo — NGC 4261 Black Hole, STS-31 Deployer
Official NASA Goddard Space Flight Center press release photograph, catalog number HqL-362, presenting the Hubble Space Telescope's landmark imagery of the core of galaxy NGC 4261. The layout pairs a ground-based optical/radio view — a fuzzy stellar disk with opposed radio jets spanning 88,000 light-years — against the Wide Field/Planetary Camera close-up of the giant gas and dust disk feeding a suspected black hole at the galaxy's center. The reverse carries full NASA descriptive text and a "For the Classroom" study section, dating the piece to the pre-servicing era (1990–1993) through its references to the upcoming STS-61 Endeavour mission.
Signed in black marker across the HST image panel by Steven Hawley, with the notation "STS-31 Mission Specialist" written below. The link is direct and documentable: Hawley flew as Mission Specialist aboard Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-31, the April 25, 1990 flight that deployed the Hubble Space Telescope itself. This makes the autograph a first-person connection between the man who put HST in orbit and one of the instrument's early landmark scientific results.
Provenance
Steven Hawley served as Mission Specialist on STS-31, the Space Shuttle Discovery mission that deployed the Hubble Space Telescope on April 25, 1990. This press photograph documents one of HST's early landmark images, tying the signer directly to the observatory whose work is depicted. Signature and mission notation confirmed by the appraiser.
CONDITION
Very Good. Clean, high-contrast photographic panel with a bold, fully legible marker signature and mission notation. Minor handling to the surface consistent with an early-1990s press release sheet; printed descriptive text and classroom section intact on reverse.
DIMENSIONS / SPECIFICATIONS
- 10" × 8"
- Format: Official NASA Goddard press release photograph
- Catalog No.: HqL-362
- Subject: Core of Galaxy NGC 4261, HST Wide Field/Planetary Camera
- Signed: Steven Hawley, STS-31 Mission Specialist (black marker)
- Image credit: Walter Jaffe (Leiden Observatory), Holland Ford (Johns Hopkins/STScI), and NASA
