During a regular astrophotography session on 1 Jan 2022, I tried to capture JWST on its way to the second Lagrange point. At that time, JWST had magnitude around +15m which is close to the limiting magnitude of my mobile imaging setup under a rural / suburban sky. Luckily, I succeeded to find JWST on the captured images, though it was not easy to locate such a dim object on a wide-field photo.
I captured two sets of images (10x2 min each) centered on approximate location of JWST (ephemeris was generated at
NASA website), with approx. 45 min delay between the sets which I spent for another
target.
Distance to JWST around 740 000 km (half-way to L2 point).
JWST position according to NASA's ephemeris:19:44 UTC, RA = 6h 18m 36.7s, DEC = +00° 19' 20.6"
21:08 UTC, RA = 6h 18m 21.7s, DEC = +00° 19' 55.2"
JWST position and brightness measured in ASTAP:19:44 UTC, RA = 6h 18m 37.1s, DEC = +00° 19' 08.6", brightness +15.2m
21:08 UTC, RA = 6h 18m 22s, DEC = +00° 19' 40", brightness +15.5m
(So, excellent match taking into account the measurement uncertainties)
Imaged with Samyang 135 mm lens @ f/2.8, ZWO ASI2600MC camera (bin 1, gain 100, -5 °C), IDAS LPS-P3 filter, sky: Bortle class 4.
Processing: calibration (dark, bias, flat), cosmetic correction, debayer, star alignment, green channel extraction, blink, crop (PixInsight), gif animation in Adobe Photoshop CC, resize to 200%.
North is to the left.
Image A: gif animation
Image B: image obtained at 19:44 UTC
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