I am confused because I thought it was an infrared telescope? Are these images as received, or are they frequency shifted post processed into the visible range?
Humans cannot see infrared light
James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live
91–100 of 410 posts
Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, that's not very good implementation. PetaPixel usually have good content, but using a GIF to compare these two images? Come on! You can see the compression artifacts very easily.
How about this one, by a user from here? https://blog.wolfd.me/hubble-jwst/
This is a great way to show all the new distant details. Amazing to think that so many of the artifacts in Hubble's total darkness are galaxies upon galaxies.
Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live
#93Watching the livestream i was more than surprised, that color correction actually happens in Photoshop. Also, there seem to be multiple layer-masks involved for specific regions and objects. I get that you can shift and composite color, based on hue, apply filters etc, but: Photoshop? Curious if anyone can explain, that what we see is actual science or some touched up version of objects in our universe. p.s.: What st…
Webb's primary camera is infrared, so there is by necessity a choice to be made with how to present the data for humans who can't see in infrared.
I am aware.
(And have been eagerly waiting for this moment for ages)
It just seems “unscientific” to just use Photoshop and above all curious about the set of rules and algorithms, that enables them to decide which hue to pick for which region, levels, etc.
Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live
#94So if they point this thing at an exoplanet and it has advanced life will we see a picture much the same as when we see a photo of earth taken from the space station? i.e. city lights etc?
Already answered in sibling: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32072067
Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live
#95Not to spoil anything, but anybody else here finding these results quite underwelming?
Hubbles pictures were probably new to you, so in a sense this is "just" an iteration.
I think you just had the perspective/expectation that this will be new as well. Maybe a bit much for the very first public results of a scientific experiment.
Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live
#96Unfortunately the NASA stream online was a disaster. Choppy video and it seemed like nobody had prepared anything. Also 720p in 2022...
Don't get me wrong, the images are amazing, but when small startups like Rocket Lab can have uninterrupted streams all the way to the orbit, but NASA stream from a studio looks more amateurish than your average 13-year-old Fortnite player on Twitch, it leaves a pretty bad impression.
Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live
#97Not to spoil anything, but anybody else here finding these results quite underwelming?
I think that'll depend how much you read.
If you look only at the picture, it's gonna be hard to tell versus, say, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Deep_Field#/media/File:... for the deep-field shot or https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2007/16/2099-Im... for the Carina Nebula shot.
If you read the details, the fact that JWST can resolve much dimmer light sources much more quickly than Hubble ever had a hope of should be fairly compelling from a "how much science can we do?" standpoint.
Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live
#98Way to brighten my day with awe and wonder, way to ruin my day with existential dread about our place in the universe.
One of my favourite concepts from Douglas Adams was the Total Perspective Vortex, a form of punishment that would drive the victim insane by showing them the entire totality of existence and their place in it.
Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live
#99Watching the livestream i was more than surprised, that color correction actually happens in Photoshop. Also, there seem to be multiple layer-masks involved for specific regions and objects. I get that you can shift and composite color, based on hue, apply filters etc, but: Photoshop? Curious if anyone can explain, that what we see is actual science or some touched up version of objects in our universe. p.s.: What st…
The difference between 'actual science' and 'some touched up version of objects in our universe' is smaller than you might think: no matter how good your eyes, if there was no frequency shift involved you would not be able to perceive the image, other than as an array of numbers. To facilitate your consumption of the data it has to be frequency shifted and the easiest way to do this is to map the IR intensity to a range of colors that are graded the same way we grade false color images from other sources: higher intensities get brighter colors and lower intensities darker colors. Because not all of these are equally pleasing to the eye and/or enlightening Photoshop is actually a pretty good choice because it allows for dynamic experimentation what brings out the various details in the best way.
If you would rather stare at an array of numbers or a non colorized version (black-and-white) it would be much harder to make out the various features.
So think of it as a visual aid, rather than an arts project or a way to falsify the data: the colorization is part of the science, specifically: how to present the data best.
Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference is in a) the details and b) the length of time the telescope has to gather light to get the photo. JWST got the photo in hours when Hubble took weeks, and there's easily 10x as many objects in the JWST shot. JWST can thus observe much fainter and much more distant objects - galaxies billions of years old, exoplanets, etc., and it can do more of it .
Of course, I get it, but we are allowed to admit that to the average person so far it looks like more of the same.
The idea that this looks the same to the average person is insane to me. What aspect of these two photos looks the same?