James Webb Space Telescope, information, updates and discussion Options

[Redstone]

The manufacture of the JWST mirror blanks has now been completed.

Despite this milestone, the fate of JWST is still somewhat precarious, because although the scientific bang from the telescope is expected to be huge, the bucks required have increased to a staggering $4.5 billion. A Space.com article on the squeeze in NASA's space-based astronomy plans gives some background.

The JWST home page can be found here.

The Space Telescope Science Institute, which runs Hubble, also has a site here. As does ESA.

[helvick]

JWST Partner's Workshop - Dublin 11 June 2007 (Part II of III)

NIRCam – Marcia Rieke University of Arizona (PI)
The instrument is quite advanced now compared to some of the other systems due to the critical role it plays as both a science instrument and as the sensor for calibration and Wavefront Sensing and Control. The CDR took place in May 2006 and the instrument is now (well) into the Engineering Test Unit phase.

Selection of the HgCdTe Rockwell sensor units has started and Dr Rieke made a point of the fact that they had no problems getting good characteristics for the short wavelength units but the long wavelength sensors are proving a bit harder. This latter difficulty extends to NIRSpec also as this requires similar characteristics.

Overall NIRCam represents 2-3 orders of magnitude increase in sensitivity in the wavelength it is designed to cover – in particular the design goal was to hit sensitivity in the nanoJansky range and that is being achieved (see below).

As NIRCam is used as the sensor for the Wavefront Sensing and Control capability it has to be fully redundant. This has resulted in a design with 2 fully independent halves to the instrument covering a total FOV of 2.2'x4.4'. That 10 square arcminute FOV makes it well suited for wide area surveys in search of (rare) first light event. Its dual purpose also means that (according to Dr Rieke) it has been exquisitely designed in an optical sense.

Dr Rieke mentioned that NIRCam could\would be used for surface characterization of KBO's. This is obvious enough and part of the "Planetary Systems and Origins of Life" theme for the mission but this was one of many instances where the presenters were at pains to point out that JWST would be useful as an observatory for Solar System objects.

NIRCam homepage - http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/nircam/

For those unfamiliar with the instrument the basic design is a dichroic refractive optic camera covering the 0.6 to 5 micron wavelength range allowing for two concurrent observations in short and long(er) wavelengths. The incoming beam is split into 0.6-2.3micron short band and 2.4 – 5.2 micron long band). There are coronographs available in both long and short modules.

Each short wavelength channel is directed to a 4096x4096 pixel sensor array comprised of a grid of 4 separate 2048x2048 pixel HgCdTe Rockwell sensors. The corresponding long wavelength channel is directed to a 2048x2048 pixel single HgCdTe Rockwell sensor. There are a total of 40 megapixels between the two halves.

I've taken some key sensitivity & resolution data for NIRCam (from http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/nircam/features.html ) and attempted to compare them to Hubble's NICMOS ( from http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/160431main_fact_sheet_NICMOS.pdf ) to try and put this instrument into some perspective.

This is entirely my reading of these two documents so I may be incorrect, if so let me know.

0.8-1.35micron NICMOS1 2.4e-7Jansky : NIRCam 1.1e-8Jansky (22x)
1.4-1.8 micron NICMOS1 5.7e-7Jansky : NIRCam 1.0e-8Jansky (57x)
0.8-1.35micron NICMOS3 4.5e-8Jansky : NIRCam 1.1e-8Jansky (4x)
2.3-2.5 micron NICMOS3 1.6e-6Jansky : NIRCam 2.5e-8Jansky (60x)

The resolution\FOV comparisons are:
NICMOS1 – 0.043" /pixel , 11" square FOV
NICMOS2 – 0.075" /pixel , 19" square FOV
NICMOS3 – 0.200" /pixel , 51" square FOV
NIRCam(short)– 0.0317"/pixel, 2'12" x 4'24" FOV
NIRCam(long) – 0.0648"/pixel, 2'12" x 4'24" FOV
NIRCam(short) covers approximately 288x the FOV of NICMOS1 at a slightly better angular resolution per pixel and 20-60x the sensitivity*. It covers 14x the FOV area of NICMOS3 at 6x finer angular resolution per pixel and 4-60x the sensitivity*. NIRCam(long) covers the same FOV at 1/4 the areal resolution.

* The sensitivity numbers (Jansky's) don't appear to be directly comparable to me. Anyone who can comment on the difference between sensitivity to achieve a "S/N of 5 over 5 orbits" (Hubble NICMOS) and "10 sigma over 10000 seconds" (NIRCam) please jump in. My understanding is that 10 sigma corresponds to an S/N of 100, if that is true then the above NIRCam numbers would need to be reduced by a factor of 20 in order to compare them with NICMOS. I believe that the 5 orbit number for Hubble equates to 5000 seconds but I'm not sure.