Hope this is not too off topic for the forum.
NASA has just released the first finished JWST capture and it’s quite incredible, specially when compared to the Hubble image. All those new galaxies captured in infra red are mind blowing to look at, considering how most of those stars are already out by now.
This article in the Guardian allows you to compare images from the Hubble and Webb telescopes side by side - First images from Nasa’s James Webb space telescope reveal ancient galaxies | James Webb space telescope | The Guardian
I was never keen on those cliched “star-burst” filters. Someone should drive out to Lagrange Point, wherever that is (somewhere on the coast?), and remove it from the front of the lens before it ruins any more photos.
I think they should stop shooting with closed aperture directly into the sun (or several of them) 
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it is actually an artifact of the mirrors.
My bad, apologies. Didn’t look enough through the posts… only did a quick ctrl+f for “jwst” and “webb” and nothing came up.
Even better than the coast (though I enjoy that thought): Life is so chill there, everything just seems to weightlessly float by 
Here’s the flickr album with all the new pictures that are being released at the moment. Only two more to go.
From L2, if I understand correctly, the Webb telescope sees a permanent eclipse that is near total, with the earth between the telescope and the sun, and the earth’s apparent diameter is only slightly less than the sun’s. The telescope permanently sees the dark side of the earth.
This could provide some photos that could be interesting to the general public, and perhaps some useful scientific data. Has Webb (or any other kit) provided such images? Or are there plans for this?
I have searched on www.nasa.gov, without success.
I don’t think it can point backwards because the sun shield needs to always face the sun, or the instruments will be too hot to operate.
@hatsnp is correct.
Even at that distance, in the shade of Earth and having a large 5 layer sun-shield to hide behind, it still needs passive and active cooling to be able to use its instruments. ~50K without cooling, passively cooled down to ~40K and actively cooled for MIRI to a staggering 7K!
Thanks for the answers. I shiver at the thought of 50 kelvin being considered “too hot”.
Clearly, JWST is an engineering marvel. And the pictures are wonderful.
Yes. In this article: Where do James Webb's unique "spikes" come from? - Big Think there is a bit of explanation. I remember a more mathematical-oriented one, but I cannot find it again…
