Astronomer and TV presenter, Mark Thompson looks to the skies and points towards the next advancement in space telescopes. Whilst the refracting and reflecting telescopes used by amateurs can see great distances, distortion is caused by peering through the Earth's atmosphere. In contrast, the much larger Hubble space telescope floats above the atmosphere and is able to produce amazing images like Mark's chosen view of the Great Orion Nebula, also known as M42. But Hubble isn't the end of the story. The James Webb Space Telescope is set for launch later in 2018 and, designed to work primarily in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, it will be able to look further and deeper into space than ever before. The Ri is on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ri_science and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/royalinstitution and Tumblr: http://ri-science.tumblr.com/ Our editorial policy: http://www.rigb.org/home/editorial-policy Subscribe for the latest science videos: http://bit.ly/RiNewsletter