James Webb Telescope (13 Feb)

Bob Wright (Usk) gave an interesting talk on the JWST back in January.  In case you wanted a little more on the current situation I came across a video on the “Launch Pad Astronomy” channel on YouTube.

It’s entitled “How James Webb orbits nothing”.  It goes into the theory behind how the JWST can orbit an empty spot in space – just in case you ever wondered.  It also emphasises the task that is faced by the JW team and the number of variables that they have to take into account.
A couple of interesting points from the video are that the telescope elliptical orbit around L2 takes about 6 months and, it’s up to twice the size of the moon’s orbit around Earth (JW orbit 250,000 to 832,000 cf the Moon 360,000 to 400,000km).  The other point was that it isn’t actually orbiting L2 but a point slightly on the Earth side of L2.  Reasons are in the video.
You can access it at this  LINK .

Also, the “Where is Webb” website, HERE, explains how the first photons have been received of star (HD84406, some 260 l.yrs distant in Ursa Major) although, as the mirrors are not yet aligned, the picture isn’t much to look at.

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