James Webb Space Telescope Launch Update

[George K]

"Let's align the mirrors."

https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/02/11/photons-received-webb-sees-its-first-star-18-times/

The team’s challenge was twofold: confirm that NIRCam was ready to collect light from celestial objects, and then identify starlight from the same star in each of the 18 primary mirror segments. The result is an image mosaic of 18 randomly organized dots of starlight, the product of Webb’s unaligned mirror segments all reflecting light from the same star back at Webb’s secondary mirror and into NIRCam’s detectors.

What looks like a simple image of blurry starlight now becomes the foundation to align and focus the telescope in order for Webb to deliver unprecedented views of the universe this summer. Over the next month or so, the team will gradually adjust the mirror segments until the 18 images become a single star.

“The entire Webb team is ecstatic at how well the first steps of taking images and aligning the telescope are proceeding. We were so happy to see that light makes its way into NIRCam,” said Marcia Rieke, principal investigator for the NIRCam instrument and regents professor of astronomy, University of Arizona.

Link to video

[taiwan_girl]

cool stuff!!

[Copper]

Webb fully aligned! See the new test images

https://earthsky.org/space/webb-telescope-aligned-new-test-images/

https://www.space.com/james-webb-space-telescope-commissioning-update-may-2022

[Copper]

Countdown to first images

Now 16 days 20 hours

https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/countdown.html

[Copper]

Now 11 days 13 hours

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/06/nasa-teases-extraordinary-images-captured-by-its-webb-telescope/

NASA scientists say images from the Webb telescope nearly brought them to tears

Deep field images of the universe, exoplanet atmospheres, and more to be unveiled.

NASA said it plans to release several images beginning at 10:30 am ET (14:30 UTC) on July 12, the result of Webb's "first light" observations.

[George K]

I read a "teaser" interview with one of the NASA scientists. They said the images almost brought them to tears.

[89th]

@George-K said in James Webb Space Telescope Launch Update:

I read a "teaser" interview with one of the NASA scientists. They said the images almost brought them to tears.

That's because they are staring at the sun. They should stop that.

[Copper]

5 days 22 hours now

Tuesday July 12, 2022 10:30am EDT (14:30 GMT)

Find them here: https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages

[George K]

[Copper]

Stephan’s Quintet (galaxy group, 290 million lyr)

As seen from Hubble

The comparison will be interesting

https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2009/25/2606-Image.html

[Klaus]

@Copper said in James Webb Space Telescope Launch Update:

The comparison will be interesting

I have no clue about astronomy, but I'd guess that in some ways the two aren't comparable since they deal, AFAIK, with very different parts of the light spectrum.

[Copper]

Link to video

Link to video

[89th]

[Copper]

Mr. Biden gave us a sneak peak today

https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages

This first image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail. Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground.

[George K]

@Copper said in James Webb Space Telescope Launch Update:

Mr. Biden gave us a sneak peak today

That's a lot of galaxies.

A whole lot.

[taiwan_girl]

@Copper said in James Webb Space Telescope Launch Update:

Mr. Biden gave us a sneak peak today

Wow amazing stuff!!

[mark]

It's a giant leap forward in resolution and light gathering power.

The level of detail in the small galaxies, and the blatantly obvious gravitational lensing, has me very impressed and excited about what we are going to discover with this telescope.

I mean seeing friggin dust lanes and spiral arms, in galaxies that far away, is just incredible.

[mark]

It's a shame we have to put up with the diffraction spikes from the spider vanes. Hubble has the same issue.

No practical way to get rid of them. Hauling a 21 foot diameter refactor into space would not work very well. lol

[George K]

@Copper said in James Webb Space Telescope Launch Update:

Mr. Biden gave us a sneak peak today

Here's the same region as taken by Hubble.

Side by side:

[Copper]

The picture on the right is better.

Billions of dollars better?

I can't say, because I'm sure I don't really understand how to compare them.

They are close enough that I believe they are the same subject.

EDIT: I found this comment, I haven't verified it

The fact that hubble captured better looking deep fields is irrelevant, what matters is that this is the same piece of sky, Webb on the left in 12 hours of exposure, Hubble on the right in weeks of exposure!