Modern astronomers do more than spend their nights in drafty observatories staring at the heavens.
The energy these objects emit travels light years before reaching the astronomer's detection point, the mirror of a high-powered telescope. The best place to collect electro-magnetic data is in an undisturbed environment such as in outer space, where radiation can pass through its mostly vacuum medium practically unaffected. Unfortunately for earth-bound astronomers, they must observe celestial objects through the atmosphere, which has a variety of disturbances. Through a glass darkly One of the main problems in observing celestial objects through the earth's atmosphere is the non-uniformity of the atmosphere's index of refraction. Because of these formidable challenges to their data collection activities, the community of astronomers has championed such projects as the Hubble telescope.