James Webb Space Telescope Discovery

Webb primary mirror selfie

This “selfie” of the James Webb Space Telescope primary mirror was created using a specialised pupil imaging lens inside of the NIRCam instrument that was designed to take images of the primary mirror segments instead of images of space. This configuration is not used during scientific operations and is used strictly for engineering and alignment purposes. In this case, the bright segment was pointed at a bright star, while the others aren’t currently in the same alignment. This image gave an early indication of the primary mirror alignment to the instrument. Credit: NASA, ESA Tags: selfies primary mirror test image engineering image