Standing by for the live launch of the JW Telescope ...

Fast facts: https://nasa.tumblr.com/post/165546092409/webb-101-10-facts-about-the-james-webb-space

Live launch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21X5lGlDOfg


... went like clockwork. Great job!

Now let's see if the thing actually works.

Now let's see if the thing actually works.

Gotta hope so. There will be no repair possible à la Hubble.

Speaking of dodgy optics; currently there is comet Leonard wandering past & it is interesting to see the quality of the optics and what can be wrong when peering into the local cosmos. One pair are Japanese & 12 by 50. These are fitted with a homemade pedestal as they have to be bolted down.

These were never really clear and when pointed at a star saw two. Pretty obvious what went wrong there and to an extent is fixed. However, there is a Soviet era pair (1990's) of 7 by 50's. Interesting the difference. I originally bought the Russian one's new, the reason being that on looking down a street a mile long, with the best of the Japanese ones I could see all of the road signs on a bridge, with the Russian ones I could read them.

Currently the comet tail is improving & last night exceeded the width of the field of view of the 7 by 50's. The Moon is not a factor at the moment, however, for the lucky people in a city, light pollution from the over zealous use of it; Is your enemy.

Binoculars may need adjustment for looking for ET. You need to focus on a pin point of light with normally the right eye & then use the adjustment (Left) to get a pin point. Width is adjusted for full circle. Best viewing as Saturn is near setting. Its above it & to the south.

Agree 100% about Russian optics. I bought a 8X40 TENTO made in the USSR from a chemist shop in 1983.

Also have a Bushnell 10X42 u-bute ants pants. When I finally found Leonard December 24 the Russian beat Bushnell by a mile. Bushnell is great in broad daylight, crystal clear clarity, but look at a black sky with it and it is not up to the task.

Despite the TENTO having smaller lens diameter, it sh*ts all over Bushnell ten times over.

BTW, TENTO was built in the 80's so probably 60's technology. Bushnell built in late 90's. Unfair comparison perhaps?

I believe that there was some sort of tie up with Zeiss & the Russians before the 2nd World War. One of the factories ended up in Eastern Germany, but I believe not a lot was lost as the Russians saw what was coming& had managed to save the technology & people that created it.

So the probability of the Russian lenses being Zeiss technology would explain a lot. The Russian Helios ones came with two sets of filters and one of them (Yellowish) is magic for cutting through haze in the summer.

One of the great surprise observations of the Hubble space telescope was that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, instead of slowing as expected through the effect of gravity.

https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy

Presently about 68% dark energy and 27% dark energy are needed as fudge factors to make present theories tie in with observations of the universe.

Another great physics problem is that Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum theory, despite their great value in making possible GPS navigation and solid state electronics, haven't been made to "play together" to give an all encompassing theory of physics.

Hopefully the JW telescope will help sort some of this out.

Hmmm, another surprise for the astrophysics mob. Never mind, they are good at fudging facts and figures to suit theories that cannot and will not ever be possible to replicate in a laboratory. This is the same mob that decided to call a flow of charged particles "Solar Wind"!!!

Really? You and I and everyone else who is remotely trained in electronic/electrical engineering would call moving charges Current. And if those charges are moving in space we would then declare them Plasma. The astro boys just seem to dig themselves deeper into mystery mud.

As Sir Arthur Eddington once said, "Something unknown is doing we don't know what."

I'm sure most of you have heard this, but I think it's relevant:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buqtdpuZxvk

Its just reached the 1 million miles mark.

Paydirt!

QUOTE: Thus far the telescope, bristling with cameras, spectroscopes and other instruments, is exceeding expectations. (Its resolving power is twice as good as advertised.) The telescope’s flawless launch, Rigby reported, has left it with enough manoeuvring fuel to keep it working for 26 years or more.