JWST 4 hour animation 5/6 January

[MarkS]

Here's my animation from last night of the James Webb Space Telescope continuing its journey to the L2 Lagrangian:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IeXQUH_ZslO7P7Alqvut4vAiPunMYjcn/view

[Quality is better if you download the 512x512 video first]

The animation covers 4 hours elapsed time last night - 2 hours either side of midnight 5/6 January Greenwich Mean Time.  North Celestial Pole is upwards in the video.

Celestial coordinates (R.A. and Dec) specific to my location were calculated by the JPL site: https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons/app.html#/

Currently the JWST is somewhere between the Rosette Nebula and the constellation of Orion, heading in the direction of Orion.  It seems to be fainter than the previous night but if you look carefully there are interesting variations in brightness

Acquisition details:
* Canon EOS R on Takahashi Epsilon 180ED scope ( 500mm focal length at f/2.8 )
* 113 exposures of 2min at ISO 1600

Processing details:
* Each frame is calibrated with darks, flats, bias then background subtracted and gamma of 2.2 applied
* The video is then cropped to 512x512

Mark

[Carole]

Well done Mark.

I have been imaging in that area over last couple of nights and got a dirty great tramline through a couple oif images, I wonder whether it could have been JWST.

Carole

[MarkS]

I have been imaging in that area over last couple of nights and got a dirty great tramline through a couple oif images, I wonder whether it could have been JWST.

More likely they were geostationary satellites.  When imaging near Orion they are very common.

[Hugh]

Really interesting Mark thank you.

You can clearly see some variation in brightness as you indicate.  I think it was rotating at one point, perhaps that?

Hugh

[Roberto]

Very good Mark.  The telescope is very far now although its brightness may have increased somewhat as it extends its mirrors and solar shield compensating somehow for the increasing distance.

Roberto

[Rick]

Cool! Presumably once it's in position, it will have its big reflector facing the Earth. I wonder how bright reflections from that will be.

[ApophisAstros]

At a million miles probably not much.Its only half way.
Roger

[Mac]

Bizarrely it wouldn't play on mine but offered me a download,
Here's the funny bit, the telescope followed the time marker across the screen exactly.

Nice capture.

[ApophisAstros]

Presumably then the Hubble can be imaged because its much closer than the JWST?
Roger

[MarkS]

Cool! Presumably once it's in position, it will have its big reflector facing the Earth. I wonder how bright reflections from that will be.

It's easy to calculate an upper limit. The solar shield is 21m x 14m at a distance of 1.5 million kilometres.  Given the sun is mag -26.7 then if the shield is 100% reflective it would be around magnitude 3, which is surprisingly bright.  It would act like an Iridium flare.  On the other hand, if the solar shield is angled in the wrong direction then it might be next to impossible to image.

Mark

[Rick]

On the other hand, if the solar shield is angled in the wrong direction then it might be next to impossible to image.

I've not looked closely at the geometry of the shield, but as it's sheets of reflective material stretched between the ends of some arms I'd guess it's not flat. That'd reduce the maximum magnitude considerably. I expect it will still vary in magnitude considerably depending upon where exactly it's facing, though.

[ApophisAstros]

i think most people are waiting for images that the actual telescope has taken rather than images of it, after all its only a white dot or a white line.
Roger

[MarkS]

i think most people are waiting for images that the actual telescope has taken rather than images of it, after all its only a white dot or a white line.

[Rick]

images that the actual telescope has taken

Of course, but they'll be a while, and seeing actual images of the spacecraft on its way is interesting too, even with all the mission status pages. Besides, doing things like imaging spacecraft (with known size, reflectivity, etc.) could provide interesting comparisons with, say, the next near-Earth asteroid or piece of wandering space junk when it too gets imaged.

[Carole]

But they are not going to be Hubble like images, as it's an Infra-red camera I believe.