The Webb team continues to make progress in aligning the observatory's mirrors. Engineers have completed the first step of the process, called Image Segment Identification. The resulting image shows that the team adjusted each of Webb's 18 primary mirror segments to assemble 18 out-of-focus copies of a single star into a planned hexagonal formation.

The team proceeded to the second stage of tuning: "Segment Alignment". At this stage, the team will correct large positioning errors of the mirror segments and update the alignment of the secondary mirror, making each individual point of starlight more focused. Once this "global alignment" is complete, the team will move on to the third stage, called Image Overlay, in which the 18 spots of light will be superimposed on top of each other.

"We line up the segment points in this array so that they have the same relative position as the physical mirrors," said Matthew Lallo, scientist and manager of the telescope department at the Space Telescope Science Institute. “During global alignment and image alignment, this familiar location will give the team an intuitive and natural way to visualize changes in segments in the context of the entire primary mirror. Now we can observe how the main mirror slowly takes its exact, intended shape!

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