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James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live

webbtelescope.org

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Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live

#161
I hope someone from NASA will read this or perhaps someone can forward this message, but all we want (mere mortal humans) is quick access to the direct links to the highest resolution images.

From what I can tell it takes anywhere from 5 (if you know what you're doing) to 10 clicks (once you understand the UI) to find all the links for a -singular- image.

Thanks nonetheless.

Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live

#162
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m confused.. why would we expect some other image processing software to be better than Photoshop - a software package which has been the top of its class for ~30 years?

Can it even open FITS?

Yes. https://esahubble.org/projects/fits_liberator/download_v23/

Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live

#164
post #133

Watching 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…

amateur astronomer here. ( https://www.instagram.com/mead_observatory/ ) 1. photoshop is really good at composing different (spectral) layers together. There is alternatives to this like pixinight that are more geared toward deep sky astronomy work but I'm sure it's easier to hire people that can just take a Photoshop class. there are many layers/masks involved for different filters. the filters accept or reject cert…

To point 3, they are absolutely keeping many, many maps of the pixels and dark current for all of their sensors - this is a good picture of the process for a standard astronomical CCD: https://cdn.nightskypix.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/calib...

Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live

#165
post #149

Watching 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…

I would have expected ImageJ has plugins better suited to work on science

Why would you assume this?

Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

While Photoshop is widely used in artistic and creative imaging, it also contains a powerful suite of tools for image processing in arbitrary color spaces. I'm not even a serious user and across various hobby projects I've used it for stuff like manipulating 3D depth data and deriving logical bit masks.

Photoshop can do just about anything with spatial image data and if it's not built-in, you can probably find a plug-in to do what you want or write a script. The trade-off is the software can be very complex because over the decades it's grown to support an incredible number of use cases.

Over the years I've also seen PS used in unexpected ways at work. If you need to do something programmatic to image or spatial data, PS is a good host platform for custom code because it will handle importing file formats, color space conversion, bit plane manipulation, alignment, scaling, cropping, perspective correction and masking before your custom processing and then it'll export the output in whatever sizes and formats you need. And it will do it on gigapixel data sets under script control. That's a lot of grunt work you don't have to implement. I've even seen it wired up to Matlab.

Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live

#168
post #64

Direct links -- Stephan's Quintet (NIRCam and MIRI Composite Image): https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DB1FHPMJCCY59CQGZC1YJQ.png Southern Ring Nebula (NIRCam and MIRI Images Side by Side): https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G79R28V7S4AXDN8NG5QCPGE3.png “Cosmic Cliffs” in the Carina Nebula (NIRCam Image): https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png Webb's First Deep Field (NIRCam Image): https://stsci-opo.org…

My god, look at the background of the first image at full scale.

Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live

#169
post #79

Not to spoil anything, but anybody else here finding these results quite underwelming?

I'm super curious how you could find these underwhelming. My mind is blown just scrolling across each of the images.

What exactly were you expecting from them?

Re: James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live

#170

Way to brighten my day with awe and wonder, way to ruin my day with existential dread about our place in the universe.

Indeed, it is truly cause to pause and step back. What's the name of that phenomenon common amongst astronauts when they see the earth from afar? I feel like our society could use more of that.

edit: Seems to be called the overview effect [0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect

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