{"id":29935,"date":"2022-03-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=29935"},"modified":"2022-04-20T13:24:07","modified_gmt":"2022-04-20T13:24:07","slug":"webb-images-target-star-to-align-its-mirrors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/2022\/03\/24\/webb-images-target-star-to-align-its-mirrors\/","title":{"rendered":"Webb images target star to align its mirrors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The James Webb Space Telescope has taken its first image of a star. In fact, it\u2019s taken 18 of them, as the images were captured as part of the months-long process of precisely aligning the 18 segments that make up the telescope\u2019s mirror.<\/p>\n\n

The star that was imaged, HD84406, was selected because it\u2019s so easily identifiable \u2013 there are no other stars of a similar brightness in its vicinity. Webb then observed the star using its Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), which has a wide field of view, making it easier to find the star in each segment of the mirror.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"
The star HD84406 as it appeared to each of Webb\u2019s 18 mirror segments during their alignment process<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

Using 1,560 images taken with the NIRCam over 25 hours, the Webb team was able to identify the star in all 18 mirror segments.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cThis initial search covered an area about the size of the full Moon because the segment dots could potentially have been that spread out on the sky,\u201d said Dr Marshall Perrin, Deputy Telescope Scientist for Webb. \u201cWe found light from all 18 segments very near the centre early in that search. This is a great starting point for mirror alignment.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n

www.nasa.gov<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Photo: ESO\/L. CAL\u00c7ADA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The JWST has taken its first image of a star <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":29934,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ub_ctt_via":"","purple_page_number":"13","purple_custom_meta_purple_page_number":"13","purple_seq_number":"2","purple_custom_meta_purple_seq_number":"2","purple_source_article":"article_13-2.xml","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_article":"article_13-2.xml","purple_source_issue":"April-2022","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_issue":"April-2022","purple_external_id":"April-2022-13-2","purple_custom_meta_purple_external_id":"April-2022-13-2","purple_issue_code":"|0000086551||","purple_custom_meta_purple_issue_code":"|0000086551||","purple_android_product":"com.im.skyatnight.203","purple_custom_meta_purple_android_product":"com.im.skyatnight.203","purple_ios_product":"com.im.skyatnight.203","purple_custom_meta_purple_ios_product":"com.im.skyatnight.203","purple_web_product":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_web_product":"","purple_publication_id":"075fab74-0a21-4201-866a-899d6c41c40c","purple_migrated":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[14],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/03\/e3955c11-9ecb-4ca4-b564-f367a5c670ec.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2","apple_news_title":""},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/03\/e3955c11-9ecb-4ca4-b564-f367a5c670ec.jpg",1040,688,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/03\/e3955c11-9ecb-4ca4-b564-f367a5c670ec-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/03\/e3955c11-9ecb-4ca4-b564-f367a5c670ec-300x198.jpg",300,198,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/03\/e3955c11-9ecb-4ca4-b564-f367a5c670ec-768x508.jpg",768,508,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/03\/e3955c11-9ecb-4ca4-b564-f367a5c670ec-1024x677.jpg",800,529,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/03\/e3955c11-9ecb-4ca4-b564-f367a5c670ec.jpg",1040,688,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/03\/e3955c11-9ecb-4ca4-b564-f367a5c670ec.jpg",1040,688,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The JWST has taken its first image of a star","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29935"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29935"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30601,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29935\/revisions\/30601"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}