NASA’s Webb In Full Focus, Ready for Instrument Commissioning

NASA ^ | April 28, 2022 | Thaddeus Cesari

[Ezekiel]

Alignment of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is now complete. After full review, the observatory has been confirmed to be capable of capturing crisp, well-focused images with each of its four powerful onboard science instruments. Upon completing the seventh and final stage of telescope alignment, the team held a set of key decision meetings and unanimously agreed that Webb is ready to move forward into its next and final series of preparations, known as science instrument commissioning. This process will take about two months before scientific operations begin in the summer.

The alignment of the telescope across all of Webb’s instruments can be seen in a series of images that captures the observatory’s full field of view.

“These remarkable test images from a successfully aligned telescope demonstrate what people across countries and continents can achieve when there is a bold scientific vision to explore the universe,” said Lee Feinberg, Webb optical telescope element manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The optical performance of the telescope continues to be better than the engineering team’s most optimistic predictions. Webb’s mirrors are now directing fully focused light collected from space down into each instrument, and each instrument is successfully capturing images with the light being delivered to them.

The image quality delivered to all instruments is “diffraction-limited,” meaning that the fineness of detail that can be seen is as good as physically possible given the size of the telescope. From this point forward the only changes to the mirrors will be very small, periodic adjustments to the primary mirror segments.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Yep, I remember the F-105 Starfighter although the author of the poem flew the Supermarine Spitfire and died in a training accident in 1941.

[Nateman]

I just checked out the NASA Webb page. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/first-images-from-nasa-s-webb-space-telescope-coming-soon
July 12th is the first full color image date.

[Ezekiel]

Thank you very much for the alert. I've got a lot going on these days; I can't keep track.

From that link:

“Our goals for Webb’s first images and data are both to showcase the telescope’s powerful instruments and to preview the science mission to come,” said astronomer Klaus Pontoppidan, Webb project scientist at STScI. “They are sure to deliver a long-awaited ‘wow’ for astronomers and the public.”

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What Will We See?

While careful planning for Webb’s first full-color images has been underway for a long time, the new telescope is so powerful that it is difficult to predict exactly how the first images will look. “Of course, there are things we are expecting and hoping to see, but with a new telescope and this new high-resolution infrared data, we just won’t know until we see it,” said STScI’s lead science visuals developer Joseph DePasquale.

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Here's something weird/funny that lines up... the Chumash (Torah) reading for that day is the account of Bilaam and his donkey; e.g.

Num 22.31 The Lord opened Balaam's eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road, with a sword drawn in his hand. He bowed and prostrated himself on his face.

(It's Always Something.)