With the right know-how, you can have the newest JWST images sent directly to your phone and inbox, or whatever device you choose, because setting up these alerts is a heck of a lot easier than checking a bunch of websites whenever you remember.
Follow the JWST Flickr page
Like Instagram, but giving off “older sibling” vibes, Flickr is a useful place to find and download high-quality images of whatever the JWST sees. Once you’re on Flickr, go to NASA’s official James Webb Space Telescope page and hit the Follow button. From there, set yourself up to get email alerts whenever they post by clicking your profile avatar in the upper right and navigating to Settings. From there, choose Emails & Notifications and decide how often you want to receive emails about recent uploads from accounts you follow (immediately, once a day, or once a week). If you follow a number of Flickr accounts and are worried about notifications swamping your inbox, you can simply check the box that says Only Friends & family, please. You will, of course, have to say the JWST is a friend, which isn’t necessarily the worst thing. To do this, go to the space telescope’s Flickr profile, click the three dots next to the “following” box, and mark it as a Friend or Family—or both.
Set up automated alerts
Google Alerts
Any Google user can set up Google Alerts that will push updates on specific topics straight to their email inbox. Head to the Google Alerts page, make sure you’re signed in to your account, and type in keywords related to the topic you’re looking for. Following the theme of this story, you might want to try “James Webb Space Telescope photos” or “JWST image.” Then configure how often you want to receive updates under the Show Options tab, and hit Create Alert. Google will start sending you regular digests of news stories and other newly published pages that contain the keywords you specified. You can refine your alerts at any time, and if you want more tips, we have a guide dedicated to Google Alerts. For example, you could get NASA’s Image of the Day emailed straight to your inbox instead of looking through an RSS feed, get a weekly status update from the International Space Station (it’s not explicitly JWST pics, but they might do related work), or have your light bulbs change color to match NASA’s Image of the Day—as long as you’ve got Philips Hue smart lights and want to feel a little more bathed in space light. The possibilities are almost as limitless as the space we’ve just begun gazing into.
