page_title: Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility
section_title: User support
hierarchical_section_title: Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility / User support
caption_attribution_description: English: An image of the Cartwheel Galaxy taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has been reprocessed using the latest techniques to mark the closure of the Space Telescope European Coordination Facility (ST-ECF), based near Munich in Germany, and to celebrate its achievements in supporting Hubble science in Europe over the past 26 years. Astronomer Bob Fosbury, who is stepping down as Head of the ST-ECF, was responsible for much of the early research into the Cartwheel Galaxy along with the late Tim Hawarden — including giving the object its very apposite name — and so this image was selected as a fitting tribute. The object was first spotted on wide-field images from the UK Schmidt telescope and then studied in detail using the Anglo-Australian Telescope. Lying about 500 million light-years away in the constellation of Sculptor, the cartwheel shape of this galaxy is the result of a violent galactic collision. A smaller galaxy has passed right through a large disc galaxy and produced shock waves that swept up gas and dust — much like the ripples produced when a stone is dropped into a lake — and sparked regions of intense star formation (appearing blue). The outermost ring of the galaxy, which is 1.5 times the size of our Milky Way, marks the shock wave’s leading edge. This object is one of the most dramatic examples of the small class of ring galaxies. This image was produced after Hubble data was reprocessed using the free open source software FITS Liberator 3, which was developed at the ST-ECF. Careful use of this widely used state-of-the-art tool on the original Hubble observations of the Cartwheel Galaxy has brought out more detail in the image than ever before. Although the ST-ECF is closing, ESA’s mission to bring amazing Hubble discoveries to the public will be unaffected, with Hubblecasts, press and photo releases, and Hubble Pictures of the Week continuing to be regularly posted on spacetelescope.org
context_page_description: The Space Telescope – European Coordinating Facility was an institution which provided a number of support and service functions primarily for European observers of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. It was established in 1984 by the European Space Agency and the European Southern Observatory, and was located at the ESO headquarters in Garching bei München, Germany. The ST-ECF ceased operations on 31 December 2010.
  The ST-ECF provided detailed technical information about the HST and its science instruments, supported European astronomers who were preparing HST observing proposals and coordinated the development of computer software tuned to the specific data analysis needs of HST users. In all these duties the ST-ECF staff maintained close contacts with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is charged with the scientific operation of the HST observatory.
  The ST-ECF was last headed by Robert Fosbury. Deputy was Jeremy Walsh.
context_section_description: Founded before the era of the internet and widely available computer resources the ST-ECF was founded with user support for European astronomers as the main goal.
  When internet connections across the Atlantic and powerful computers became the mainstay, the focus of the organization shifted towards data product and dedicated instrument science support.
caption: This view of the Cartwheel Galaxy was produced by ST-ECF from Hubble data, and released in December 2010.[2]
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