Astronomy & Space Exploration

FireballXL5

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Damn, I'm going to miss the launch. Fingers crossed everything goes to plan or it's $10bn down the shitter!
 

thebelfastboy

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Visually it was a bit of an anticlimax because of the weather etc but what a relief to see it get up there in one piece!
 

LARulz

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It's incredible. I cannot even fathom the genius behind this. I was blown away even with the little chart showing how spot on they were with the launch projection to that point

My dumb arse brain was sat here thinking how cool it would be if planes could fly "even" a quarter as quick as that telescope did during the launch
 

thebelfastboy

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It's incredible. I cannot even fathom the genius behind this. I was blown away even with the little chart showing how spot on they were with the launch projection to that point

My dumb arse brain was sat here thinking how cool it would be if planes could fly "even" a quarter as quick as that telescope did during the launch
It really is. I sat watching it reflecting on my abysmal effort at building a Hot Wheels set for a 3yr old at 2am last night. Albeit I did have a few whiskeys in me but I was feeling similar levels of stress as those in NASA
 

Massive Spanner

Give Mason Mount a chance!
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So unbelievably cool. Will surely go down as one of the great feats of human engineering if it does work six months from now. Can’t wait to see some of the images.
 

dinostar77

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don't think the scientists will be able to breathe a sigh of relief for at least six months when finally the passive cooling and the calibration should finish, and actual research can start.
Six months? Jees that's longer than I thought. Do we know what it will pointed towards first? Obviously being infrared telescope, nasa will colour adjust the images for visable light where required. Apparently the chief engineer for the project has 100 hours of dedicated time on James Webb to use at his discretion. The last time that was done with hubble I.e. use of discretionary time we got the simply stunning Hubble Deep Field and Ultra Deep Field pics.

Apparently some of the discretionary time will be used to look at Uranus and Neptune. Which will be interesting.
 

Cheimoon

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I was looking at it just now. Incredible to see - especially the footage at the end, of the telescope separating from the last part of the rocket and unfolding its solar panel. A great start!

Funnily, my daughter is hugely into all things space, but this didn't seem to impress her much at all. Too technical maybe. She just wanted to keep fidgeting with her rubix cube. :D
 

Amarsdd

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Six months? Jees that's longer than I thought. Do we know what it will pointed towards first? Obviously being infrared telescope, nasa will colour adjust the images for visable light where required. Apparently the chief engineer for the project has 100 hours of dedicated time on James Webb to use at his discretion. The last time that was done with hubble I.e. use of discretionary time we got the simply stunning Hubble Deep Field and Ultra Deep Field pics.

Apparently some of the discretionary time will be used to look at Uranus and Neptune. Which will be interesting.
As far as I know I don't think it's been revealed, but the second part of the following talk gives a good idea of what interesting things JWST will be looking at during its lifetime.
 

TwoSheds

More sheds (and tiles) than you, probably
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Six months? Jees that's longer than I thought. Do we know what it will pointed towards first? Obviously being infrared telescope, nasa will colour adjust the images for visable light where required. Apparently the chief engineer for the project has 100 hours of dedicated time on James Webb to use at his discretion. The last time that was done with hubble I.e. use of discretionary time we got the simply stunning Hubble Deep Field and Ultra Deep Field pics.

Apparently some of the discretionary time will be used to look at Uranus and Neptune. Which will be interesting.
Pointing a massive gold telescope at Uranus doesn't sound very discreet...
 

giggs-beckham

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I was looking at it just now. Incredible to see - especially the footage at the end, of the telescope separating from the last part of the rocket and unfolding its solar panel. A great start!

Funnily, my daughter is hugely into all things space, but this didn't seem to impress her much at all. Too technical maybe. She just wanted to keep fidgeting with her rubix cube. :D
Yea same I said what's that luca, he said a space ship!
 

Cheimoon

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Yea same I said what's that luca, he said a space ship!
That's not wrong though! :cool:

Also: my daughter got a Lego space shuttle for Christmas (no, not the huge Discovery one!), and it includes a little satellite that it can deploy. Once she had out it together and started playing with it, of course the satellite became Webb anyway. She definitely does care! :)
 

giggs-beckham

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That's not wrong though! :cool:

Also: my daughter got a Lego space shuttle for Christmas (no, not the huge Discovery one!), and it includes a little satellite that it can deploy. Once she had out it together and started playing with it, of course the satellite became Webb anyway. She definitely does care! :)
That's mint congratulations. Hope my boys will be the same
 

Flying high

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As far as I know I don't think it's been revealed, but the second part of the following talk gives a good idea of what interesting things JWST will be looking at during its lifetime.
Can anyone explain what he means at 55:38 when he says "with a telescope like that, you can resolve everything in the universe to about 300 light years"?