kirkster501

I grabbed 5 x 300s exposure last night and crated a GIF. Conditions appalling but scope aimed at where the Ephemeris said and the only thing moving is highlighted. I can't get the animated GIF to work on any website other than opening it on my computer

Tower successfully extended 😀 https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2021/12/29/webbs-deployable-tower-assembly-extends-in-space/

^^^indeed, scope operations are very carefully planned such that the scope is not slewing here , there and everywhere between random targets of the researchers. Target selection is extremely carefully managed so that only the tiniest whiff - literally a thimbleful - of fuel is needed to move the scope between closely adjacent objects in the sky to preserve the precious fuel.

That is correct. It can only image things that are in a cone 120-150 degrees wide centred on the sky opposite The Sun; at no point must any of the JWST telescope optics or "shadow side" components be exposed to the direct sun. This means that if it could image now it would be 60 degrees either side of Orion (i.e. opposite the Sun in the sky). When it - hopefully - opens for operations next year it will be able to observe SagA* at the centre of the galaxy. First objects are a reproduce of the Ultra Deep Field in Fornax - 160 hours of scope time! - and M82, another 80 hours.

One of these stars is JWST. I just can't get a proper 100% focus though since it's forever clouding over. Will keep trying.

Yes indeed, the accuracy of the Ariane launcher could have added years to the mission. I watched a video about this on YouTube a few weeks ago and they said it was crucial beyond crucial that the trajectory Ariane put it on was correct. It has to be placed in an exact place at an exact distance at an exact trime and a few feet per minute too fast could blow the entire mission. Let's not get too excited just yet though and hope a lot of the "twirls" and "shimmies" are not needed to get a potentially jammed sunshield opened up, thereby wasting precious fuel.

Lovely ambient music by Joseph Beg.

Thanks for sharing Laurence.

There looks to be a tiny bit of blue here and there in the sky. I think it'd only need five or six 300s subs.

That is my understanding too. Should be easy to image it with a few five minute subs to show the movement. For visual I'd imagine you'd need a quite detailed atlas. JWST is not available on The SkyLive as yet Space Probes | TheSkyLive.com

Yep. Tower assembly has to raise up and the momentum flap deployed before the telescopic wings extend in a couple of days time.

This is the current location and will drift to the east a few minutes of arc per day over the next ten days. Would dearly loved to have imaged it but there is no chance with the weather - as per usual with anything remote exciting happening in the world of astronomy in the UK. You just run the Ephemeris tool to get the JWST coordinates for your location and then enter them into Stellarium. Remember parallax has a slight effect but less so now that it has been going for a bit and is 350k miles out.

Set the Ephemeris time to 10 days. 30 days does not work.

Without the pallets lowered there is no mission since the secondary can't deploy. Even if the sunshield doesn't work, there is still a [degraded] mission of sorts but the secondary \has\ to deploy.

That is a scary thought!

100% agree. It is frankly obscene the amount of money tied up in expensive imaging gear I have at home that I can hardly ever use. I have a friend - an old work buddy - who moved out to Spain and retired early, inland a bit from Malaga (for similar reasons, a hatred of the UK climate) and I have made overtures to him - which he is receptive to - of moving my imaging gear there. I will think about this in the coming year because the current situation of AP in the UK is hopeless.

My 12" Dob is always outside, 24x7, ready for the sky to clear.

At one stage, clear and dark skies were even a factor I was considering as part of my next house move. But I can't in all fairness justify it to my kids and fiancee that we live further away from civilisation and proximity to the things that they like to do based upon fifteen nights or less per year of clear skies - half of which the moon is shining down. So to answer the OP's question. No plans at all because it is impossible to make them in the UK. Bright eyed and full of enthusiasm I had a plan and a project to image the whole of M31 in very high resolution in HaLRGB. Five years into that project I have done four panels out of 16 and I have given up on it, autumn and winter have been incredibly dreadful for the last eight years or so.

Yes, I agree. Flogging a dead horse I think. I thought I might get at least one night of clear sky over xmas but nothing at all. I downloaded the ephemeris for JWST and hoped to get a few subs of it on its way out to L2. Endless cloud, mist and rain since December 10th has scuppered that and there looks no end in sight.

If the Webb telescope sunshield doesn't open, here’s what NASA will do (msn.com)

I thought the pallets for the sunshield were coming down at 2.7 days which would have been at about six this morning UK time. Hope there isn't an issue since we have gone past that.... Then again, they are probably doing due diligence so I remind myself that patience Grasshopper, patience...🤣

Where Is Webb? NASA/Webb

A lot to test and a lot to go wrong. They would have tested it within an inch of its life but at some point they have to commit. They said that even in tests, very occasionally the sunshield didn’t fully work. On the ground it was consuming millions of dollars per day too, even more when in Kourou. Fingers crossed for the next few days.

High gain antenna deployed. I think the big stuff starts tomorrow with the sun shield pallets starting to be dropped down.

Yes indeed. There are plenty of them that could still arise too. Without tempting fate though, yesterday was a major hurdle. Rockets can and do blow up on the launch pad as we all know. The earlier MCC burn was crucial too. Shows the fuel systems are working and pressurised. Some great pictures here: Newest! Webb in Kourou, French Guiana | Flickr