How to photograph the James Webb Space Telescope

You don't need much more than a DSLR, star tracker and 200mm+ lens to photograph the James Webb Space telescope. Let's walk through how you can find and photograph the James Webb Space Telescope for yourself!
JPL Horizons app: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/horizons/app...
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:48 How we can see the JWST
3:20 What you can expect to capture
4:08 What gear you need
5:00 How to find the JWST
7:04 Final tips for imaging
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[@backpackmc]

Great content and production!

[@AstroWithRoRo]

Much appreciated!

[@johnmheaton]

Got to try this! Thanks.

[@AstroWithRoRo]

Clear skies!

[@ChrisPattisonCosmo]

Very cool!

[@jameshe2023]

Great information

[@AstroWithRoRo]

Glad you liked it!

[@GregMcCall]

A great idea for a video.

[@AstroWithRoRo]

Thanks Greg!

[@krellon]

I've shot animated gifs of JWST in its L2 orbit. Both with C11 sct and an Esprit 120ED. C11 gave a brighter object. Looks much like a faint asteroid.

[@edouble0325]

Oh man that’s just like the image detection used in Don’t look up. Kinda haunting

[@13_cmi]

Will it be visible when it’s all the way out? Or just in certain places?

[@mikevaughn4725]

So here is what I am thinking to find L2... I will be trying to get some shots using my Redcat51 for now. I haven't found an android sky guide app that has the JWST in it. However, if I use Stellarium and find when the sun will be directly opposite of my location (i.e. when the sun's Azimuthal grid says ia 0* 0' 0" from my location) I can get what should be the exact opposite of that location. For example if I were to do that tonight the sun is at 0*-0'-0" at 00:17. It is off to the north by 14 degrees, so if I look straight up and off to the south 14 degrees that should basically be L2. Right???

[@DavesAstrophotography]

Yep, I was also amazed to see it. I captured it on New Year Day. I put a video up on my channel as well. I was using the Rasa11 at 620mm fl for this.

[@AstroWithRoRo]

It definitely surprised me how easy it was to capture, I'll be keen to try again once it's at L2 to see how difficult it will be then. A fun little image to get though!

[@BeUpAbohvit]

Why not include a photo of the telescope to help give some visual understanding or just show that it can be done when using your method?

[@tullyfisher]

Very nice video. How did you align your single images in order to blink between them?

[@malcolmloro4766]

If your question is directed to me, to create my video from single images I used the free software PIPP (Planetary Imaging PreProcessor). Sorry it took me 3 months to reply - I didn't see your comment.

[@tullyfisher]

@@malcolmloro4766 No problem. Thank you for your reply. Clear skies :)

[@scottrk4930]

Interesting . Do we have the co-ordinates for the L2 point ? If the JWST is going to orbit there "face on" and not "edge on" to us , do we know the size of the orbit say in arc-seconds as seen from Earth ? I'm hoping that once it gets into a stable , permanent orbit we may have better luck exposing on the L2 point and may end up with a circle of light for our efforts . Cheers/SRK

[@mikebennett2015]

I've just done a calculation using the Horizon data and Stellarium and from London UK the Azimuth varies from 150-220 degrees and Altitude varies from -1 to 65 degrees so aiming at L2 is not going to work.

[@tekn0lust]

Do you think Hubble would be able to resolve any details if pointed towards JWST?

[@AstroWithRoRo]

Just off some quick napkin maths. I don't believe the Hubble will be able to resolve details. My maths put the JWST at around 0.003 arc-seconds and I believe the Hubble is capable of around 0.5 arc second resolution.

[@RS-mu2bz]

@@AstroWithRoRo JWST is 22m , distance of 1.5m km - divideing the two 1.46*10^-8 radians which is 8.4*10^-7 degrees which is 0.003 arc seconds. HST has a resolving power which is diffraction limited. Resolving power is 1.22*wavelength/D = 1.22*(500nm)/2.4m = 2.5*10^-7 radians which is 1.4*10^-5 degrees which is 0.05 arcseconds. So no the HST cannot resolve it. However the ELT at 38m working at 500nm can have a resolving power of 0.003 arcseconds which can resolve it! But i don’t think getting diffraction limit at 500nm is easy for a ground based telescope, thus increasing to 1000nm in IR where adaptive optics works it will not be able to resolve. Interferometry can resolve it.

[@padhyemihir]

Cant any ground based large telescope image JWST?

[@dekemp1986]

To us it might be interessting, but it would be a waste of precious observing time to astronomers. Large ground based telescopes are over subsribed so observing time is generally not used for these kinds of things. Then again, also for a large ground based telescope, or for hubble, it will still be a 1 pixel point as it is so far away.

[@oneadamtwelve86]

does anybody know how fast it will be moving through the sky, once its in place? how many arcseconds per minute? tough to find an answer online

[@mikebennett2015]

Looking at the change in RA and dec from the Horizon site for tonight I recon it is changing by 5.9 arcseconds per minute.

[@oneadamtwelve86]

@@mikebennett2015 but once it’s in it’s L2 spot it’s going to be moving a lot slower

[@mikebennett2015]

It’s in its L2 orbit now my figure is for tonight Feb 11th

[@oneadamtwelve86]

@@mikebennett2015 ok that sounds pretty good. I asked this question on quora, somebody told me it would move up 48 degrees and down 48 degrees every 6 months. That led me to an answer of 1.33 arcseconds per minute. But of course 5.9 arcseconds sounds a lot better for a time lapse video. Thanks for your answer

[@headdown1]

Thanks for this info. I am mystified as to why I can't find the JWST. I am in the Arizona desert at a dark site. I am using Horizons from JPL as you suggested. I am plate solving my way to the coordinates, and exposing up to 60 minutes per sub at 2350mm f10 (Edge 9.25). I have nice round stars, but no JWST. No line. Two successive 10 minute exposures show no movement. Good to hear it will still be visible at L2. I will try again in about a week.

[@DavesAstrophotography]

You maybe in too deep, and if it is not in the exact position you might be missing it, I was using a Rasa11 at 620mm fl, and much shorter exposures and it sometimes had to wait a few minutes of continuous exposures for it to come into view, I did also put a video on my channel. Cheers, and good luck next time you try!

[@mikebennett2015]

Thanks for this video. I'm going to give it a go with my tracker and camera when I get a clear night. While waiting I found you can run scripts on Stellarium so thought it would be fun to extract the data from the Horizon site and convert it into a script using Excel. To do this copy the following into cell A1 ="core.debug(""" & MID(B1,2,17) & " " & MID(B1,24,23) & """); core.setDate(""" & MID(B1, 2,5) & TEXT(MONTH(DATEVALUE(MID(B1,7,3)&" 1")),"00") & MID(B1,10,3) & "T" & MID(B1,14,5) & ":00""); core.moveToRaDec(""" & MID(B1,24,2) & "h" & MID(B1,27,2) & "m" & MID(B1,30,5) & "s"", """ & MID(B1, 36,3) & "d" & MID(B1, 40,2) & "m" & MID(B1, 43, 4) & "s""); core.wait(3);" Then paste the values from Horizon into Cell B1 and below. These rows will start with a space then the date etc. Now copy the formula down in column A to match the rows you have in column B. Column A will now contains a script that Stellarium understands. Copy the data from column A. Open Stellarium, press F12 to open the scripts window and paste the script in. Press the play button to track James Webb across the sky. Of course this formula will work for any data you get from the Horizon site.