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Do you ever wonder what data the Hubble and Webb space telescopes are collecting right now? Or exactly what they were doing as you blew out your candles on your last birthday? NASA’s Space Telescope Live has the answer!

Designed and developed by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach (OPO), this exploratory web application provides access to the most up-to-date publicly available information on current, past, and upcoming Hubble and Webb observations.

The application offers timely information for the science-interested public, with a straightforward and engaging way to learn more about how astronomy investigations are carried out.

With Space Telescope Live, users can use their desktop or mobile device to find out what each telescope is observing now, 24 hours into the future, or at any date and time in the past; where the targets are on the sky; what instruments are being used to gather the data; and what questions researchers hope to answer.

Roots in SASP

The original version of Space Telescope Live was developed in 2016 by Julie Imig, then an intern in STScI’s Space Astronomy Summer Program (SASP) and now an astronomical data scientist for the Mikulski Archives for Space Telescopes (MAST). Designed to deliver immediate updates on Hubble’s observing status, the application provided basic information that ultimately reached more than 37,000 followers via a social media feed.

Shortly after the James Webb Space Telescope commenced operations in 2022, the institute recognized the need to provide information about current Webb observations as well, and decided to transform Space Telescope Live into a multi-mission application.

Expanded Functionality

The revamped version of Space Telescope Live, which was released in March 2024 and last updated in November 2024, builds on the original idea with a redesigned user interface and expanded functionality, including:

• A zoomable sky map, developed using the Aladin Sky Atlas, with target coordinates, map field of view, and ground-based imagery from the Digitized Sky Survey II and Two Micron All Sky Survey to provide context for the observation
• The ability to click or swipe forward and “slew” to the next target
• Details such as target name, research topic, scheduled start and end times, and principal investigator, pulled directly from the observation scheduling and proposal planning databases managed by the Hubble and Webb science operations centers at STScI
• Information about the components and wavelength range of each instrument used in the investigation
• A calendar tool to easily browse the entire catalog of observations by date, back to the beginning of Hubble’s operations in May 1990 and Webb’s first commissioning targets in January 2022
• A timeline function that makes it possible to identify observations that were occurring at a specific time on a certain day
• A link to the original research proposal, which serves as a gateway to more technical information, including the publicly available data stored in MAST
• A User Guide with public-friendly explanations of the information displayed in the too

Leveraging Knowledge and Skills Across the Institute

Redevelopment of Space Telescope Live required a wide range of expertise within OPO, including software development, graphic and user experience design, science writing, learning theory, and astronomy. The multi-disciplinary outreach team designed and developed the back end as well as the front end, deciding what information to include, how to display that information, how to make the tool mobile responsive.

Like all other digital experiences being developed by OPO, Space Telescope Live was built with accessibility in mind from the beginning. Multiple navigation mechanisms and pathways, components that can be read aloud fluidly by screen readers, and graphics with detailed text descriptions all ensure that the application is useful to many different audiences, including those who are blind or have low vision.

The effort also involved close collaboration with STScI staff scientists and engineers outside of OPO, who helped make it possible for Space Telescope Live to pull directly from the Hubble and Webb schedule and proposal databases. The ability to build and maintain an application that provides accurate and up-to-date information on the space telescopes’ observations with reliability is possible because outreach is embedded within the science operations centers at STScI.

In the year since the redesign was released, engagement with Space Telescope Live has increased dramatically. The number of individuals visitors has increased by a factor of five to more than 325,000; the number of page views increased by an order of magnitude to more than 2.5 million; and the average amount of time each visitor engages with the application has nearly tripled. Users are accessing Space Telescope Live from every state, district, and inhabited territory of the U.S. and from more than 215 other countries and territories around the world.

So, what were Hubble and Webb observing on your last birthday?