NASA WEBB TELESCOPE TESTS FULL

NIRSpec is a spectrograph rather than imager but can take images, such as the 1.1 micron image shown here, for calibrations and target acquisition. Webb’s three imaging instruments are NIRCam (images shown here at a wavelength of 2 microns), NIRISS (image shown here at 1.5 microns), and MIRI (shown at 7.7 microns, a longer wavelength revealing emission from interstellar clouds as well as starlight).

The sizes and positions of the images shown depict the relative arrangement of each of Webb’s instruments in the telescope’s focal plane, each pointing at a slightly offset part of the sky relative to one another. For this test, Webb pointed at part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, providing a dense field of hundreds of thousands of stars across all the observatory’s sensors.

NASA WEBB TELESCOPE TESTS FULL

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.įeatured in this video are engineering images demonstrating the sharp focus of each instrument. It is official, alignment of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is now complete.

Nasa webb telescope tests