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I have just been catching up with the latest news on JWST in one of my favourite publications. This report, dated 26 Jan, suggests that one can spot the observatory in the bowl of the Big Dipper with binoculars. James Webb Space Telescope is seen from Earth as it settles into orbit | Daily Mail Online
New Year report from Tynemouth: windy conditions, with clouds scudding across the sky. JWST is still within reach of moderate equipment: I am able to pick it up on individual 10 second frames taken through an 8 in RASA. Frame 5 start 21:35:26; frame 67 start 21:45:57. I have enough frames to make a reliable (I think) estimate of brightness – I’ll plate solve and find some suitable comparison stars.
I estimated the brightness at about 12.595 CV, with a delta for the check* star (*corrected) of 0.021.
I acquired a set of frames last night: 2021-12-29T21:17:18 – 2021-12-29T21:25:46
Really pleased to get it, as the weather here (for astronomy, anyway) has been so poor.
Conditions weren’t great – certainly not photometric quality – but I imaged the field and the image gives a ballpark indication of brightness (certainly consistent with Forth’s obs). Midpoint 2021-12-29T21:44. PA 297deg; 80′ x 60′.
Happy Christmas all! Fingers crossed that JWST launches without a hitch today, and that the whole sequence of further manoeuvres (and unpacking) goes as planned. The weather forecast for NE England over the next week shows a lot of cloud unfortunately. But I would love to image it whilst en route to L2.
Hi Grant. I have enjoyed the recent issues. Richard Wright, Rod Mollise and Dennis di Cicco know what they are talking about: the test reports in S&T are generally more incisive than those in the other mags. Bob King is very good with his celestial calendar. The general articles: the one on Saturn’s moons in September was excellent, as was the one on RW Aur in August. Mat Wedel’s binocular stuff is useful for me when using my RASA for lazy but enjoyable EAA (I get a couple of degrees).
I don’t know how helpful this little commentary was, but it is still my mag of choice.
Thanks for letting us know. I’ll get on it as soon as possible – from the forecast, it looks like Sat eve may be clear where I am.
Wow, it’s bright – and so nicely placed in Cas next to M52 and the Bubble Nebula! I carried out a 41 x 5s stack this eve: not scientifically useful, but a pretty pic, I think.
Getting the spacing right can indeed be a faff. I’m sorted also with my RASA 8: a 7.5 mm spacer has given me nice circular donuts all the way to the corners of my largest sensor. My calculations suggested 12.5 mm would be required to get me there, but no – trying and testing got me to the solution. Phew!
Thanks Robin.
On the topic of atypical phenomena, others may be interested that there is a nice article on transients, written by Anna Ho, in the December 2020 issue of Scientific American. Amongst other things, she talks about SN2018gep and the famous ‘cow’, which spawned many strange illustrations of floating cows, AT2018cow.
I captured the transient this evening (2021/01/16 20:30) – it is still dimmer than the nearby field star.
