NASA scientists have published an image of the star HD 84406 obtained by the Webb telescope
NASA scientists have published the first image obtained by the James Webb Space Telescope during the alignment of the main mirror. This is reported on the website of the US Space Agency.
The researchers obtained a mosaic of images from 18 randomly located light points that appeared when starlight was reflected from the same star by segments of the telescope mirror onto a secondary mirror and an array of infrared NIRCam cameras. Over the next month, scientists will adjust the mirror of the device until all the images merge into one star.
A bright single star HD 84406 in the constellation Ursa Major was chosen to adjust the telescope. During the image capture process, which began on February 2 and lasted 25 hours, the Webb Telescope was aimed at 156 different positions around the predicted location of the star and generated 1,560 images using 10 NIRCam detectors, which amounted to 54 gigabytes of raw data. The observatory was able to locate the target star in each of its mirror segments during the first six hours and 16 exposures.
