Executive summary: this telescope is a bigger, better, more badass Hubble and it'll help us find exoplanets, discover galaxies, and peer back to the beginning of the universe.
Two decades of hard work by some of the finest minds on the planet. Scheduled to launch Christmas Eve 2021. Fingers crossed.
(https://mira.be/sites/default/files/images/1280px-JWST-HST-primary-mirrors.img_assist_custom.jpg)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aICaAEXDJQQ
https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/countdown.html
Did they checked the damned mirror this time?
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on December 20, 2021, 09:50:16 PMDid they checked the damned mirror this time?
We'll see. It'll be at Lagrange point 2 (basically, hiding behind Earth's shadow in order to keep its sensitive sensors as cool as possible) 1,500,000 km away from the Earth (about 4 times the distance to the moon), so it'll be too far away to service should something go wrong. In comparison, the Hubble is a mere 540 km away.
Quote from: Hydra009 on December 20, 2021, 10:28:29 PM
We'll see. It'll be at Lagrange point 2 (basically, hiding behind Earth's shadow in order to keep its sensitive sensors as cool as possible) 1,500,000 km away from the Earth (about 4 times the distance to the moon), so it'll be too far away to service should something go wrong. In comparison, the Hubble is a mere 540 km away.
Holy crap! These guys are getting serious about looking into outer space. I went to a lecture by some Cal Tech guys who said we can't see the beginning of the universe, because the lights didn't come on until 250,000 years later. I think at time, they were approaching the 250,000 year event. I'm still hoping we will be able to see the beginning without the aid of light. Surely if something happened, our guys must be smart enough to detect it.
Well, we think we have already detected it, but we didn't know what it was when we did. It's the back ground radiation that you can see on your TV when it's tuned to an empty channel, but I'm hoping for something more dramatic than that.
Launch pushed back to Christmas Day.
Saw an interesting graphic the other day. Picture ~ a dozen (didn't count them.) hexagons (JWT mirror). The Hubble mirror would cover the center hex and a bit of the surrounding hexs. The outer ring of hexs were more than one diameter away from the Hubble mirror. The ghost of Galileo is drooling somewhere out there. Ah, found it.
(https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/711x379/https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5a5e137d31358e4955aac781/The-James-Webb-Space-Telescope-vs--Hubble-in-size--main--and-sensitivity--inset--/960x0.jpg?fit=scale)
It's on the way! Final orbit will be 1 million miles from earth.
There don't appear to be any anti-maskers at all in the control center.
6 months until they start their first science missions. :(
Hopefully we will get to see some of the focusing and alignment shots.
My brother asked why the countdown was in French and if they're launching from France. 🤦â€â™,ï¸
(It launched from French Guiana, in cloudy weather no less)
We are fresh out of space shuttles if it doesn't deploy correctly. Perhaps Bezos can do a spacewalk if needs be.
So far, so good! The real test will be the deployment of the sunshield.
Quote from: Cassia on December 25, 2021, 11:41:18 AM
We are fresh out of space shuttles if it doesn't deploy correctly. Perhaps Bezos can do a spacewalk if needs be.
They have a squadron of Teslas ready if needed.
Post-launch tracker (https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/webbLaunch/whereIsWebb.html)
Sunshield deployed!
Quote from: Hydra009 on December 29, 2021, 12:39:42 AM
Sunshield deployed!
Not quite. The booms are out, but it hasn't been tensioned yet. The tensioning is one of the most complicated parts of the deployment. They are currently looking at the temperatures of some of the motors involved along with the power systems.
https://www.space.com/james-webb-space-telescope-sunshield-tension-delay
I was watching a docu on the Perseverance rover last night. I'm surprised there aren't more burnouts.
Quote from: PopeyesPappy on January 02, 2022, 08:34:38 PM
Not quite. The booms are out, but it hasn't been tensioned yet. The tensioning is one of the most complicated parts of the deployment. They are currently looking at the temperatures of some of the motors involved along with the power systems.
https://www.space.com/james-webb-space-telescope-sunshield-tension-delay
Well, it is now. https://www.yahoo.com/news/james-webb-space-telescope-sun-170243955.html
Quote from: Hydra009 on January 04, 2022, 11:20:22 PM
Well, it is now. https://www.yahoo.com/news/james-webb-space-telescope-sun-170243955.html
Seems to be working too. The average temperature difference between the hot and cold side is 368 F (205 C).
Deployment of the secondary mirror has started.
With that much heat radiation, they could have powered it with a steam engine.
Somebody let me know if it spots intelligent life anywhere in the universe.
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on January 05, 2022, 07:11:14 PMSomebody let me know if it spots intelligent life anywhere in the universe.
I don't know if it could do that even if pointed at Earth.
Quote from: Hydra009 on January 05, 2022, 07:16:28 PM
I don't know if it could do that even if pointed at Earth.
Note the wording I used.
Quote from: SGOS on January 05, 2022, 11:43:35 AM
With that much heat radiation, they could have powered it with a steam engine.
Not usually hot enough to generate steam, but a Sterling engine might work.
FULLY DEPLOYED!
I know recent events have sorta put this on the back burner, but I just want you guys to know that the telescope has completed its journey to L2! 1.46 milllion km! Now, it's just the relatively simple matter of aligning/calibrating the mirrors (for a scant 5 months) before the images start pouring in!
Quote from: Hydra009 on January 26, 2022, 09:35:46 AM
I know recent events have sorta put this on the back burner, but I just want you guys to know that the telescope has completed its journey to L2! 1.46 milllion km! Now, it's just the relatively simple matter of aligning/calibrating the mirrors (for a scant 5 months) before the images start pouring in!
I don't know about pouring in. Many of the images are going to be multiple long exposures.
For example the Hubble Ultra Deep Field:
QuoteThe image required 800 exposures taken over the course of 400 Hubble orbits around Earth. The total amount of exposure time was 11.3 days, taken between Sept. 24, 2003 and Jan. 16, 2004.
That's just exposure time. Image processing time is not included.
The good news is most of the images probably won't take that long so maybe we will see some of the early targets fairly quickly after the alignment is complete. Maybe...
I've been seeing this picture floating around. Is this an actual photograph of Pluto from James Webb?
[spoiler=Spoilered due to large size](https://cdn.uanews.arizona.edu/s3fs-public/images/uanow/Pluto_UANow%20thmb.jpg)[/spoiler]
Quote from: Blackleaf on January 26, 2022, 07:37:34 PM
I've been seeing this picture floating around. Is this an actual photograph of Pluto from James Webb?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM-e46xdcUo
Circa 2016. Almost certainly a false color image created from this image taken from the New Horizons Pluto flyby in 2015. https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/933/true-colors-of-pluto/
Ah. I was thinking it was a lot more colorful than I was expecting. Oh well.
That settles it. Pluto is a planet!
They have added readouts for 5 more temperature sensors to the tracking page. All on the cold side.
That looks like a Mercury - Moon hybrid with too much make up on it to me,lol.
Quote from: drunkenshoe on February 02, 2022, 10:22:12 AM
That looks like a Mercury - Moon hybrid with too much make up on it to me,lol.
Don't body-shame planetoids. :P
Sorry! That's a nice girl.
Quote from: Blackleaf on January 26, 2022, 07:37:34 PM
I've been seeing this picture floating around. Is this an actual photograph of Pluto from James Webb?
We're not getting any images from the Webb for five or six months yet. It's a lovely Pluto mosaic, though.
JWST *has* had First Light (https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/02/03/photons-incoming-webb-team-begins-aligning-the-telescope/), but only for alignment purposes. The magnitude of the aligning process was described thusly: if the Webb compound mirror were the size of the continental United States, each segment would be the size of Texas, and at that scale would need to be aligned with an accuracy of 1.5" to each other. The fine adjustments are really unspeakably fine (movements of a fraction of the wavelengths of light to be observed); it's expected to take three months.
Quote from: trdsf on February 07, 2022, 12:46:21 PM
JWST *has* had First Light (https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/02/03/photons-incoming-webb-team-begins-aligning-the-telescope/)
And this is what HD84406 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_84406) looks like to the NIRCam detectors before alignment. 18 different images of 1 star.
(https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/220211114041-03-james-webb-telescope-images-0211-exlarge-169.jpg)
(https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/220211113911-02-james-webb-telescope-images-0211-exlarge-169.jpg)
In addition to the alignment image, it's also taken a selfie (https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/02/11/photons-received-webb-sees-its-first-star-18-times/)
There's a three minute youtube on what they did there.
There's a three minute youtube on what they did there.
https://youtu.be/oTQvKuvdcmM
I hope it's galaxy photos are better than its selfie. I'm not going to make to big an issue out of this because it was never designed for selfies.
Quote from: SGOS on February 12, 2022, 10:16:56 AM
I hope it's galaxy photos are better than its selfie. I'm not going to make to big an issue out of this because it was never designed for selfies.
The selfies are to allow the mirrors to be adjusted to their precise places. Still a work in progress.
OK, that makes sense. Is that why they have so many pictures of the same star in different positions?
Quote from: SGOS on February 12, 2022, 10:46:57 AM
OK, that makes sense. Is that why they have so many pictures of the same star in different positions?
Sixteen panels(#?) all have to be tweaked into the receptor. They didn't try to get them perfect BEFORE A VIOLENT SHAKING as they went out to L5ish.