NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Northrop Grumman
After achieving the major breakthrough of telescope alignment on the NIRCam, Webb’s team began extending the telescope alignment to the Guide (Fine Guidance Sensor, or FGS) and three other science instruments. This six-week process is called multi-domain alignment (MIMF).
When a ground-based telescope is moved from camera to camera, sometimes the instrument is physically removed from the telescope and a new telescope is installed during the day when the telescope is not in use. If the other instrument is already on the telescope, the mechanisms are in place to move a portion of the telescope’s optics (called a detection mirror) into the field of view.
On space telescopes like Webb, all cameras see the sky at the same time; To switch a target from one camera to another, the telescope is reset to place the target in the other device’s field of view.
After MIMF, the Webb telescope will provide good focusing and sharp images in all instruments. Furthermore, we need to know precisely the relative positions of all fields of view. Over the past weekend, we mapped the positions of the three near-infrared instruments relative to the guide and updated their positions in the software we use to orient the telescope. In another instrument milestone, FGS recently achieved “precision guidance” mode for the first time, mounted on a guide star with the highest level of accuracy. We also took “dark” images to measure the basic response of the detector when no light reaches it – an important part of device calibration.
The Webb Guider (FGS) and four science instruments (NIRCam, NIRSpec, NIRISS and MIRI) share Webb’s telescope’s field of view, but they actually see different parts of the sky on any given observation. credit: NASA
Webb’s mid-infrared instrument, the MIRI, will be the last instrument lined up, still waiting for the coolant to cool it down to its final operating temperature, just below 7 degrees above.[{”attribute=””>absolutezeroInterspersedwithintheinitialMIMFobservationsthetwostagesofthecoolerwillbeturnedontobringMIRItoitsoperatingtemperatureThefinalstagesofMIMFwillalignthetelescopeforMIRI[{”attribute=””>absolutezeroInterspersedwithintheinitialMIMFobservationsthetwostagesofthecoolerwillbeturnedontobringMIRItoitsoperatingtemperatureThefinalstagesofMIMFwillalignthetelescopeforMIRI
You might be wondering: If all of the instruments can see the sky at the same time, can we use them simultaneously? The answer is yes! With parallel science exposures, when we point one instrument at a target, we can read out another instrument at the same time. The parallel observations don’t see the same point in the sky, so they provide what is essentially a random sample of the universe. With a lot of parallel data, scientists can determine the statistical properties of the galaxies that are detected. In addition, for programs that want to map a large area, much of the parallel images will overlap, increasing the efficiency of the valuable Webb dataset.
Written by:
- Jonathan Gardner, Webb deputy senior project scientist,
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