James Webb team starts aligning the telescope's 18 mirrors

[Shawn Knight]

What just happened? The process of aligning the telescope’s 18 primary mirror segments started this week, and within the last day, the team got to see the first photons of starlight that passed through the scope and were detected by the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument – Webb’s primary image sensor.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope arrived at ground zero for its mission activities in late January following a month-long journey to the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point nearly a million miles from Earth.

Initial images from the James Webb Space Telescope will be unfocused. These will be used to slowly fine-tune the scope’s mirrors into alignment in order to create a single, sharp image.

We’re still at the very beginning of this process, but NASA said initial results match expectations and simulations. The team built a 1/6th scale model of the telescope to practice aligning the mirrors and are now ready for the real thing on Webb.

Despite lots of experience under their belt, the process will still take a while to complete as it’ll play out over seven phases during the next three months.

The steps in the commissioning process include segment image identification, segment alignment, image stacking, coarse phasing, fine phasing, telescope alignment over instrument fields of view and iterate alignment for final correction. NASA highlights the steps involved in each phase over on its blog should you want to learn more.

The first “pretty” images from Webb are expected later this summer.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/93273-james-webb-team-starts-aligning-telescope-18-mirrors.html

 

[BadThad]

I can't wait! Looks like May and we'll have some images, very exciting!

 

[wiyosaya]

The fact that they can align these mirrors is a technical marvel, IMO, because they need to be aligned to nanometer precision.

 

[kiwigraeme]

I can't wait! Looks like May and we'll have some images, very exciting!

You can imagine the politicking and conferences for Scope time - when they get the time - exciting and nerve wracking - they probably plan every second , they probably have a power and other constraints . Much more intense than booking mainframe or miniframe time in the 70s or Booking Google AI time . Surfers get up at 4am if great waves - they will have to do it anytime in 24 hour cycle .
Imagine surveys coming first after a few short projects

 

[Lew Zealand]

You can imagine the politicking and conferences for Scope time - when they get the time - exciting and nerve wracking - they probably plan every second , they probably have a power and other constraints . Much more intense than booking mainframe or miniframe time in the 70s or Booking Google AI time . Surfers get up at 4am if great waves - they will have to do it anytime in 24 hour cycle .
Imagine surveys coming first after a few short projects

It's the same thing with the Hubble right now. 30 years later and scope time is still 100% booked for years. Either that or find something to study that can be done with a ground-based scope.

 

[Uncle Al]

It's getting closer ..... I wonder how many years of advanced reservations have been signed up for all those that want an opportunity to do their own stellar research .....

 

[wiyosaya]

You can imagine the politicking and conferences for Scope time - when they get the time - exciting and nerve wracking - they probably plan every second , they probably have a power and other constraints . Much more intense than booking mainframe or miniframe time in the 70s or Booking Google AI time . Surfers get up at 4am if great waves - they will have to do it anytime in 24 hour cycle .
Imagine surveys coming first after a few short projects

Despite what the imagination might ponder, proposals are more based on scientific merit and observational goals rather than politics. In fact, the guidelines are publicly available - https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/jwst-opportunities-and-policies
https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/jwst-op...cycle-1-proposal-policies-and-funding-support
https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/jwst-astronomers-proposal-tool-overview - Just in case you qualify, and want to submit a proposal.
https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/jwst-opportunities-and-policies/jwst-call-for-proposals-for-cycle-1
I am sure you will not want to wade through all the pages there are on the JWST web site, but just in case you do, those links should provide a good starting point.
Since other countries contributed funding to the project, observing time is allocated to those countries in proportion to their contributions which, IMO, makes perfect sense.
Its a scientific instrument, not a political tool.

 

[kiwigraeme]

Despite what the imagination might ponder, proposals are more based on scientific merit and observational goals rather than politics. In fact, the guidelines are publicly available - https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/jwst-opportunities-and-policies
https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/jwst-op...cycle-1-proposal-policies-and-funding-support
https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/jwst-astronomers-proposal-tool-overview - Just in case you qualify, and want to submit a proposal.
https://jwst-docs.stsci.edu/jwst-opportunities-and-policies/jwst-call-for-proposals-for-cycle-1
I am sure you will not want to wade through all the pages there are on the JWST web site, but just in case you do, those links should provide a good starting point.
Since other countries contributed funding to the project, observing time is allocated to those countries in proportion to their contributions which, IMO, makes perfect sense.
Its a scientific instrument, not a political tool.

Thanks - I kind of mean horse trading - not the more specific use of politicking.
Thanks for the info - I pretty sure those making the decisions can't be BS - plus it's such a valuable resource the submissions will be of a high standard .
Won't be subject to evening dew , cloud cover etc . Though wonder if earths orbit affects timing of scope time - can't imagine galactic dust clouds could as too far away - but maybe local asteroid belts /planets on our orbit plane .
Must be annoying , yet exciting if your time gets shoved for an amazing short lived event .
One of the interesting things I read as unlike Hubble not in earth orbit so much much harder to repair