A stunning photograph shows NASA's James Webb Space Telescope amid a star-studded sky.

The exposure was taken over five minutes by the Rome-based Virtual Telescope Project, which used a PlaneWave 17-inch robotic telescope to track Webb on a Paramount ME mount.

According to project manager Gianluca Masi, the photograph captured Webb just as it was approaching its target at the Earth-sun Lagrange Point 2 (L2), which is around 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) distant from our planet.

"Our robotic telescope tracked the apparent motion of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which is marked by an arrow in the center," he added. Masi discovered the famous space observatory in the Big Dipper's bowl, and NASA claims that if you know where to look, you might be able to identify it using binoculars.

Webb is still in the early stages of his career. What to expect in the following five months of the telescope's commissioning stage, according to NASA and prime contractor Northrop Grumman, includes things like properly aligning the mirrors, turning on and testing sensors, and taking some engineering photos.

"We expect the first science images from JWST to come back in about five months," Amber Straughn, the deputy project scientist for Webb science communications, said during a webcast Webb event on Monday.  

Webb's long-term goal is to study the early cosmos, determine how rapidly our universe is expanding and speeding, and examine objects ranging from galaxies to exoplanets.

The $10 billion telescope was launched into space on Dec. 25 after years of delays, but the mission has been uneventful since then. Another major milestone, the intricate deployment of Webb's main mirror, was completed earlier this month with relatively minor hiccups.